@schie/queue

A tiny, promise-based task queue that runs jobs sequentially with explicit pause/resume and cancellation controls. Designed to keep a single consumer in-order, surface errors deterministically, and make queue status observable for UI or orchestration hooks.

Features

• ✅ Single runner, in-order task execution (no accidental parallelism)
• ⏸️ Explicit pause/resume with backpressure-friendly blocking
• 🛑 Cancellation that flushes pending work and blocks stale generations from changing state
• 🚨 Optional pauseOnError flow that captures the last task error and waits for a resume signal
• 🕹️ Status callbacks for wiring into logs, metrics, or UI (Idle → Processing → Paused/Cancelled)
• 📦 Zero dependencies, ESM + CJS builds, typed with TypeScript

Installation

npm install @schie/queue
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Requires Node.js 20+.

Quick Start

import { Queue, QueueStatus } from '@schie/queue'

const queue = new Queue({
  onStatusChange: (status) => console.log('status:', QueueStatus[status])
})

queue.addTask(async () => {
  await doWork('first')
})

queue.addTask(async () => {
  await doWork('second')
})

// Pause new work mid-flight
queue.pauseQueue()

setTimeout(() => {
  // Clear any previous error and resume processing
  queue.resumeQueue()
}, 500)
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Handling errors with pauseOnError

const queue = new Queue({
  onStatusChange: (status) => console.log('status:', QueueStatus[status]),
  pauseOnError: true
})

queue.addTask(async () => {
  throw new Error('oops')
})

queue.addTask(async () => doWork('after error')) // waits until resume

// When a task fails:
// - status flips to Paused
// - lastTaskError is set
// - processing waits until resumeQueue() is called

if (queue.lastTaskError) {
  console.error('last error:', queue.lastTaskError.message)
  queue.clearLastError()
  queue.resumeQueue()
}
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Cancellation and auto-resurrection

queue.addTask(async () => doWork('maybe cancel me'))
queue.cancelQueue() // clears pending tasks and sets status Cancelled

// Later, adding a task resurrects the queue into a fresh generation
queue.addTask(async () => doWork('fresh start')) // status returns to Idle → Processing
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API

Queue constructor

type QueueOptions = {
  onStatusChange?: (status: QueueStatus) => void;
  pauseOnError?: boolean;
};

new Queue(options?: QueueOptions);
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• onStatusChange fires only on real status transitions.
• pauseOnError toggles whether task errors pause the queue and are surfaced via lastTaskError (defaults to false).

Methods

• addTask(task: () => Promise<void>) — enqueue a task; auto-starts if idle and auto-resurrects after cancellation.
• pauseQueue() — transition to Paused if currently processing.
• resumeQueue() — clears lastTaskError, transitions back to Processing, and unblocks paused processing. Also restarts if idle with pending work.
• cancelQueue() — set status to Cancelled, flush pending tasks, and invalidate any in-flight runner.
• clearQueue() — remove pending tasks; leaves status Idle when not processing/paused/cancelled.
• clearLastError() — reset lastTaskError without changing status.
• addNextTask(task: () => Promise<void>) — enqueue a task to run before other pending tasks (after the current in-flight task); auto-starts if idle and auto-resurrects after cancellation.

Properties

• status: QueueStatus — current lifecycle state (Idle, Processing, Paused, Cancelled).
• isProcessing | isPaused | isCancelled | isIdle — boolean helpers.
• size: number — pending task count.
• lastTaskError: Error | null — most recent error when pauseOnError is enabled.

Invariants and behavior

• Single runner: tasks execute sequentially; the queue never introduces parallelism.
• Generation guard: cancellation increments an internal version so stale runners cannot revert status later.
• Draining: when the queue empties (and not cancelled), status returns to Idle.
• Pausing: while paused, processing blocks until resumeQueue is called.

Scripts and Testing

• npm test -- --watchman=false — run the Jest suite with coverage (keep it at 100%).
• npm run build — emit ESM/CJS builds and types.
• npm run lint — lint the repo (plus lockfile validation).

Contributing

PRs are welcome. Please:

• Keep behavior changes aligned with the TypeScript source and this README.
• Preserve the single-consumer, in-order contract and status integrity.
• Add or update tests to maintain 100% coverage.
• Use the provided npm scripts instead of bespoke commands.