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triggerdotdev--trigger.dev/references/scheduled-tasks
Eric Allam ac7177d61f feat(schedule-engine): stop persisting per-tick schedule state (#3476)
## Summary

Each scheduled-task tick previously issued **3 Prisma `UPDATE`s**
against
`TaskSchedule.lastRunTriggeredAt`,
`TaskScheduleInstance.lastScheduledTimestamp`,
and `TaskScheduleInstance.nextScheduledTimestamp`. All three were pure
denormalization — every value can be derived without persisting.

After this PR `TaskSchedule` and `TaskScheduleInstance` become **near
read-only**:
writes happen only on schedule create / update / delete (rare admin
actions),
so the per-tick autovacuum churn on these hot tables disappears.

## Design

The previous fire time travels forward through the **schedule worker
payload**,
not through the database. Concretely:

- The `schedule.triggerScheduledTask` worker payload gains an optional
  `lastScheduleTime: z.coerce.date().optional()` field.
- When the engine fires a schedule, it re-enqueues the next tick with
  `lastScheduleTime = scheduleTimestamp` (the just-fired time).
- When the next tick dequeues, `payload.lastTimestamp` is sourced from
`params.lastScheduleTime` directly. No DB round-trip, no cron-derivation
  drift across DST boundaries, no caveats around recently-edited cron
  expressions.

`payload.lastTimestamp` keeps its `Date | undefined` SDK shape.
First-ever
fires still report `undefined`, so customer `if
(!payload.lastTimestamp)`
first-run patterns keep working.

For Redis jobs that were enqueued **before** this change (which lack
`lastScheduleTime` in their payload), the engine falls back to
`instance.lastScheduledTimestamp` once. Once those drain, the column is
never read again. Revert is code-only; the columns stay in place and can
be dropped in a follow-up once the rollout is stable.

## Files

- `internal-packages/schedule-engine/*` — engine refactor,
`workerCatalog`
schema field, `TriggerScheduleParams` extension, tests updated to assert
  on the worker-payload flow rather than DB readbacks.
- `internal-packages/database/prisma/schema.prisma` — `/// @deprecated`
  triple-slash docstrings on the three columns. No migration.
- `apps/webapp/app/presenters/v3/ScheduleListPresenter.server.ts` —
drops
the `lastRunTriggeredAt` Prisma select; "Last run" cell is approximated
from the cron expression's previous slot, gated on `schedule.createdAt`
so brand-new schedules show "–". UI is best-effort; the runs page is the
  source of truth.
- `apps/webapp/app/v3/utils/calculateNextSchedule.server.ts` — adds a
  `previousScheduledTimestamp` helper for the UI cell above. Public API
responses (`api.v1.schedules.*`) already compute `nextRun` from cron and
  don't expose `lastTimestamp` — no public API change.
- `references/scheduled-tasks/` — new reference project with declarative
  schedules at multiple cadences and three throw-on-fail validators
(`first-fire-detector`, `interval-validator`, `upcoming-validator`) for
  E2E-verifying the worker-payload flow.

Refs TRI-8891

## Test plan

- [x] `pnpm run typecheck --filter @internal/schedule-engine --filter
webapp`
- [x] `pnpm run build --filter @trigger.dev/core`
- [x] `pnpm run test --filter @internal/schedule-engine` — integration
test
asserts first-fire `lastTimestamp === undefined`, second fire carries
      the previous fire's timestamp exactly.
- [x] E2E against local webapp via `references/scheduled-tasks`:
- Fresh schedules attached → all three deprecated columns stay `NULL`
after
    multiple fires.
  - Redis payload at second fire contains
    `"lastScheduleTime":"<previous fire timestamp>"`.
- `TaskRun.payload` and the every-minute task's returned output both
confirm
`lastTimestamp = null` on first fire and `lastTimestamp = <prev fire>`
on
    second fire, exactly 60s apart.
  - All three throw-on-FAIL validators completed successfully on every
    non-first fire.
- [x] Schedules REST API end-to-end (`POST` / `GET` / `PUT` / `activate`
/
`deactivate` / `DELETE`) — `nextRun` recomputed live from cron + tz on
      every response, no reads of deprecated columns.
2026-05-01 08:22:39 +01:00
..

scheduled-tasks reference

E2E test bed for the schedule engine. Designed to verify the worker-payload flow that carries payload.lastTimestamp forward across fires (no DB round-trip, no cron-derivation drift).

Setup

  1. Create a project in the local webapp at http://localhost:3030 and copy the project ref from Project Settings.
  2. Replace proj_REPLACE_ME in trigger.config.ts with that ref.
  3. From this directory:
pnpm exec trigger login -a http://localhost:3030 --profile local
pnpm exec trigger dev --profile local
  1. Open the project in the dashboard and visit each schedule. Click "Attach to environment" → dev. The first fire happens at the next cron slot.

What to look for

  • first-fire-detector — first run of a freshly-attached schedule should log first-fire-detector PASS (first fire) with lastTimestamp: null. Subsequent runs log PASS (Nth fire) with a Date.
  • interval-validator — every non-first fire of an every-minute task should log interval-validator PASS with actualIntervalMs: 60000. A FAIL here means the worker payload isn't carrying the previous fire time correctly.
  • upcoming-validator — every fire should log upcoming-validator PASS with 10 strictly-increasing slots, each 60s apart.
  • every-minute, every-five-minutes, hourly-utc — sanity checks across cadences. Inspect payload in the dashboard to confirm timestamp and lastTimestamp look right.
  • daily-* schedules — won't fire during a short dev session, but the attach action should enqueue a Redis job for the next slot in the listed timezone. Worth checking that next-fire time matches the expected wall-clock in that tz.