Render Background Workers

This skill explains worker services on Render: processes that consume jobs from a queue instead of serving HTTP. Pair with render-blueprints, render-env-vars, and render-networking when wiring render.yaml and private connectivity.

When to Use

• Designing or debugging queue-backed workers (Celery, Sidekiq, BullMQ, Asynq, etc.)
• Choosing between a worker, Cron Job, or Workflow for background work
• Configuring Render Key Value as a broker (not a cache) with correct eviction policy
• Implementing graceful shutdown so in-flight jobs are not lost on deploy

Per-framework setup and signal-handling detail: references/queue-framework-setup.md, references/graceful-shutdown.md.

Before deploying, restarting, or changing shutdown behavior, read references/deployments.md. Before configuring or troubleshooting a worker's outbound private-network connection, read references/private-networking.md. When choosing between a worker, cron job, and Workflow, read references/service-types.md.

How Workers Work

• Long-running services with no inbound (HTTP) traffic. Render does not expose a public URL or internal hostname for workers the way it does for web or private services—workers cannot receive private network traffic directed at them.
• The typical pattern is a poll loop: the process connects to a queue backend (often Render Key Value, Redis-compatible Valkey 8) and pulls jobs.
• Workers can initiate outbound connections on the private network—to PostgreSQL, Key Value, private services, web services (internal URLs), and the public internet—subject to your plan and firewall rules.

Queue Framework Overview

Framework	Language	Queue backend	Notes
Celery	Python	Key Value	Most common Python task queue
Sidekiq	Ruby	Key Value	Standard for Rails
BullMQ	Node.js	Key Value	Modern Node queue
Asynq	Go	Key Value	Go async task processing
Oban	Elixir	Postgres (not a Key Value queue)	Queue stored in the database

Pairing with Key Value

• Use Render Key Value as the job broker when your framework expects Redis.
• Set maxmemory policy to noeviction. allkeys-lru and similar policies are for caches; evicting queue keys drops jobs.
• Wire REDIS_URL (or your framework’s equivalent) via fromService with type: keyvalue and property: connectionString in the Blueprint.
• Blueprints require ipAllowList on Key Value—include the CIDRs that should reach the instance (often [] for private-network-only access; see render-blueprints / Key Value field reference).

See references/queue-framework-setup.md for minimal app + YAML examples.

Worker vs Cron vs Workflow

Need	Use	Why
Always-on queue consumer	Background Worker	Polls continuously; long-lived process
Periodic scheduled task	Cron Job	Runs on a schedule, exits; 12h max per run
Distributed parallel compute	Workflow	Each run gets its own instance; fan-out patterns
High-volume or bursty jobs	Workflow	Scales per run without a continuously running worker instance

Graceful Shutdown

• Workers should: (1) stop accepting new jobs, (2) finish the current job or checkpoint progress, (3) close connections, (4) exit 0.
• Follow references/deployments.md for Render's current drain, signal, and shutdown-delay behavior.

Language- and framework-specific handlers: references/graceful-shutdown.md.

Blueprint Configuration

Minimal pattern: type: worker, runtime, buildCommand, startCommand, and envVars wired from Key Value.

services:
  - type: keyvalue
    name: jobs
    plan: starter
    region: oregon
    maxmemoryPolicy: noeviction
    ipAllowList: []

  - type: worker
    name: task-worker
    runtime: python
    region: oregon
    plan: starter
    buildCommand: pip install -r requirements.txt
    startCommand: celery -A tasks worker --loglevel=info
    envVars:
      - key: REDIS_URL
        fromService:
          name: jobs
          type: keyvalue
          property: connectionString

Optional: maxShutdownDelaySeconds on the worker service for longer draining jobs.

References

Topic	File
Celery, Sidekiq, BullMQ, Asynq, Oban setup + YAML	references/queue-framework-setup.md
SIGTERM, maxShutdownDelaySeconds, per-language patterns	references/graceful-shutdown.md
Deploy lifecycle, shutdown, restart, and verification	references/deployments.md
Private-network scope, internal addresses, and troubleshooting	references/private-networking.md
Service-type selection and execution models	references/service-types.md

Related Skills

• render-deploy — First deploy, CLI, service creation
• render-blueprints — Full render.yaml schema, fromService, projects
• render-networking — Private URLs, what can call what
• render-scaling — Worker plans, instance counts, limits

Current documentation retrieval

Whenever this skill directs you to consult current Render documentation:

1. Retrieve the linked Markdown document directly with an available URL-fetching tool or HTTP client, such as curl. Do not substitute web-search summaries for the document.
2. Confirm that retrieval succeeded and returned the expected document, then read its contents. Saving a file or printing its path is not sufficient.
3. If the request fails or your tool cannot read the Markdown response, open and read the linked HTML version instead.
4. If neither version can be retrieved, disclose that the current reference is unavailable and follow any topic-specific fallback in the skill. Use bundled guidance only for stable constraints, and do not guess at changeable platform details.

When a task requires multiple references, apply this workflow to each one and distinguish the documents you verified from those that remain unavailable.