FeaturesInngest FunctionsSteps & Workflows

Sleeps

Two step methods are available to pause the execution of your function for a specific amount of time.

Using sleep methods can save the need for running multiple cron jobs and additional queues. For example, Step Pauses enables you to create a user onboarding workflow that sequences multiple actions in time: first send a welcome email, then send a tutorial everyday during the first week.

How sleeps works

Each step method informs Inngest to resume execution at a future time. Your code does not need to be running during this enabling sleeps to be used in any environment, even serverless.

This implies that Function being paused by a sleeping Step won't affect your account capacity (ex, your Function's concurrency capacity).

Pausing an execution for a given time

Use step.sleep() to pause the execution of your function for a specific amount of time.

export default inngest.createFunction(
  { id: "send-delayed-email" },
  { event: "app/user.signup" },
  async ({ event, step }) => {
    await step.sleep("wait-a-couple-of-days", "2d");
    // Do something else
  }
);

Check out the step.sleep() TypeScript reference.

Pausing an execution until a given date

Use step.sleepUntil() to pause the execution of your function until a specific date time.

export default inngest.createFunction(
  { id: "send-scheduled-reminder" },
  { event: "app/reminder.scheduled" },
  async ({ event, step }) => {
    const date = new Date(event.data.remind_at);
    await step.sleepUntil("wait-for-scheduled-reminder", date);
    // Do something else
  }
);

Check out the step.sleepUntil() TypeScript reference.

About: Maximum sleep duration

Functions can sleep for a year (seven days for the free tier plans).