Thanks for the link, DBOS looks interesting.

Durable execution seems to be exactly the problem space here.

Most approaches keep the executor inside the app and use the DB for coordination, which works but still means rebuilding similar infrastructure in every project.

I'm trying to understand if there's room for a simpler external runner for smaller apps.

> Most approaches keep the executor inside the app and use the DB for coordination

Actually the opposite. DBOS is the only one that does it that way. All the other durable execution solutions require an external coordinator.

I think your assessment is incorrect though. Using the app and DB does not mean building new infra for every project (your project already has an app and a DB). You simply import the library and it does the rest, and then you write your code normally. Every other solution requires building new, similar infrastructure for every project (the external coordinator).

The language-native library approach is the far simpler and more repeatable way to do it.

As another example, an AI with the right context can build a DBOS app, often in one shot. An AI will take a ton of work to build your terraform or YAML to set up the infra you need to use an external coordinator.

The beauty of the DBOS solution is that it works great for tiny apps and massive apps with billions of checkpoints, and everything in between.

The transactional enqueue issue is exactly what makes me unsure about the callback model.

With in-app queues you get the nice property that the job can be created in the same DB transaction, which is harder to keep once the runner lives outside the app.

I'm trying to understand if the simplicity of an external runner is worth that trade-off for smaller apps.

Yeah, that's usually when async becomes unavoidable for me too — long tasks, retries, scheduling.

Even with Postgres queues I still end up doing a fair bit of setup, which makes me wonder if this should live outside the app.

Yes, I've seen a lot of Postgres-based queues lately too.

Even without Redis I still end up rebuilding some kind of job system on top of the DB, which is why I'm wondering if this should live outside the app entirely.

Yeah, that makes sense too. I also try to keep things synchronous as long as possible.

In practice async usually shows up once there are external APIs, retries, scheduling, or anything that shouldn't block the request, and that's where I end up building some kind of job system again.

I'm trying to figure out if that point happens often enough to justify moving this outside the app entirely.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I end up doing as well.

It works, but I keep rewriting the same task table / locking / retry logic in every project, which is why I'm wondering if it makes sense to move this out into a separate service.

Not sure if it's actually a real problem or just my workflow though.

I would create a library, make some logic more generic, create a generic table (task id, taskType, workerId, etc), store task metadata as jsonb so it can be pulled and marshalled into typed data by users.

Import it into your projects.

Make the library work standalone. But also build a task manager service that people can deploy if they want to run it outside their code.

Then offer a hosted solution that does the webhooks.

I’m sure someone will want to pay for it.

That makes sense, and this is actually close to what I keep ending up with in different projects.

I usually start with something simple, then add a task table, then locking, retries, then some kind of worker process, and eventually it turns into a small job system anyway.

At some point it starts feeling like I'm rebuilding the same queue/worker setup over and over, which is why I'm wondering if this should live outside the app entirely.

Thanks, this discussion is really helpful.