Instant Tasks (Limited Availability)

Instant Tasks are always-on pipelines that answer an HTTP request directly, with no message broker in between. They're built for low-latency, synchronous request-response work — webhooks, API facades, and real-time lookups that need an immediate answer.

A request goes straight into a pre-started pipeline instance, and the reply comes straight back out:

  1. A client calls the Snaplex node.
  2. The request goes into a running pipeline instance.
  3. The first document the pipeline emits is the response.

Instant Tasks are a distinct, first-class task type: create one from the Create Task dialog in Designer or Manager, and track its runs separately in Monitor. Failure handling for Instant Tasks is covered in Usage guidelines and Limitations.

High availability

Instant Tasks support aliases for high availability: assign the same alias to Instant Tasks on separate Snaplexes and route traffic between them with an external load balancer. For details, see Invoke Instant Tasks.

Prerequisites

  • Instant Tasks must be enabled for your Environment (Org). Contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to request access.
  • Write permissions for the project space.
  • A valid pipeline using Snaps that support Instant Task mode.

Usage guidelines

Where Instant Tasks fit

  • Split reads from writes: Route the low-latency read path of an integration — lookups, validations, status checks — through an Instant Task, and keep writes that require guaranteed delivery on a task type that provides it.
  • Synchronous API facades: Front a backend system with a pipeline that must answer immediately, such as a lookup, enrichment, or validation service called inline by another application.
  • Legacy middleware refresh: Replace an existing always-on HTTP listener that already has no guaranteed-delivery semantics. Moving that workload to an Instant Task does not change its reliability characteristics, but removes the infrastructure you were maintaining to run it.

Designing pipelines for Instant Tasks

  1. Keep the response in the first output document. The first document the pipeline emits is what's returned to the client; anything the pipeline emits afterward is not sent back.
  2. Fail fast with a meaningful status code. Use error handling to map pipeline failures to an HTTP status instead of letting a request hang.
  3. Keep execution time inside the client's timeout budget. There is no queue to absorb a slow run, so pipeline latency becomes response latency directly.
  4. Give every node an instance. Size the number of Instant Task instances per Snaplex node to the expected concurrent request volume — with no FeedMaster to buffer load, an undersized instance count causes HTTP 503 responses under burst traffic.
  5. Front the Snaplex with a load balancer. Instant Tasks run directly on each node with no central queue, so use an external load balancer to distribute requests across nodes and to fail over between aliased Instant Tasks.
  6. Build the client to handle rejection and retry. Instant Tasks deliver at-most-once with no requeueing, so the calling client — not the platform — is responsible for retrying on a 503 or a lost response.

Limitations

  • Instant Tasks do not guarantee message delivery. If an instance fails while processing a request, the request is not retried or requeued.
  • When a Snaplex node reaches its maximum concurrent request capacity, it returns HTTP 503 (Service Unavailable). Use an external load balancer to distribute requests across nodes. Refer to Invoke Instant Tasks for details.
  • The pipeline requirements for Instant Tasks limit the use of certain Snaps. Refer to Pipeline requirements for Instant Tasks for details.
  • Instant Tasks are supported on Groundplex only. Cloudplex is not currently supported.
  • Instant Tasks cannot be invoked through API Manager in this release. API Manager support for Instant Tasks is planned for a future release.

Instant Task information

Topic Description
Pipeline requirements for Instant Tasks Describes the pipeline design requirements and the Snaps that support Instant Task mode.
Create an Instant Task Steps to create an Instant Task from Designer or Manager, including all configuration settings.
Invoke Instant Tasks URI patterns and examples for invoking an Instant Task.