Fan-Out

Dispatch child tasks from within a handler using ctx.task(). Each child runs as an independent execution with its own retry policy, timeout, and logging.

Quick Example

import { task } from "@usepingback/next";

export const processOrder = task("process-order", async (ctx) => {
  const { orderId, items, userId } = ctx.payload as {
    orderId: string;
    items: string[];
    userId: string;
  };

  // Fan out to independent child tasks
  ctx.task("send-confirmation", { orderId, userId });
  ctx.task("update-inventory", { items });
  ctx.task("notify-warehouse", { orderId, items });
});

How It Works

1. Inside a handler, call ctx.task(name, payload) one or more times.
2. Task requests are collected in memory (not dispatched immediately).
3. When the handler completes, the SDK returns the collected tasks in the response body.
4. The platform creates a child execution for each task, linked to the parent via parentId.
5. Each child is dispatched to the job queue independently.
6. Child executions appear nested under the parent in the dashboard.

Limitations

• Fan-out tasks are dispatched after the parent handler completes, not during.
• The number of child tasks per execution may be capped by your plan (e.g. 10 for Pro).
• Child tasks inherit no state from the parent — all data must be passed via the payload.

Workflows

Fan-out enables multi-step workflows by chaining tasks. Each task can dispatch further tasks, creating a directed graph of executions. The dashboard visualizes the full workflow graph with parent-child relationships.