Modern applications often need to run specific tasks periodically. There are two scheduler extensions in Quarkus. The quarkus-scheduler extension brings the API and a lightweight in-memory scheduler implementation. The quarkus-quartz extension implements the API from the quarkus-scheduler extension and contains a scheduler implementation based on the Quartz library. You will only need quarkus-quartz for more advanced scheduling use cases, such as persistent tasks, clustering and programmatic scheduling of jobs.

If you add the quarkus-quartz dependency to your project the lightweight scheduler implementation from the quarkus-scheduler extension is automatically disabled.

1. Scheduled Methods

If you annotate a method with @io.quarkus.scheduler.Scheduled it is automatically scheduled for invocation. In fact, such a method must be a non-private non-static method of a CDI bean. As a consequence of being a method of a CDI bean a scheduled method can be annotated with interceptor bindings, such as @javax.transaction.Transactional and @org.eclipse.microprofile.metrics.annotation.Counted.

If there is no CDI scope defined on the declaring class then @Singleton is used.

Furthermore, the annotated method must return void and either declare no parameters or one parameter of type io.quarkus.scheduler.ScheduledExecution.

The annotation is repeatable so a single method could be scheduled multiple times.

1.1. Triggers

A trigger is defined either by the @Scheduled#cron() or by the @Scheduled#every() attributes. If both are specified, the cron expression takes precedence. If none is specified, the build fails with an IllegalStateException.

1.1.1. CRON

A CRON trigger is defined by a cron-like expression. For example "0 15 10 * * ?" fires at 10:15am every day.

CRON Trigger Example
@Scheduled(cron = "0 15 10 * * ?")
void fireAt10AmEveryDay() { }

The syntax used in CRON expressions is controlled by the quarkus.scheduler.cron-type property. The values can be cron4j, quartz, unix and spring. quartz is used by default.

The cron attribute supports Property Expressions including default values and nested Property Expressions. (Note that "{property.path}" style expressions are still supported but don’t offer the full functionality of Property Expressions.)

CRON Config Property Example
@Scheduled(cron = "${myMethod.cron.expr}")
void myMethod() { }

If you wish to disable a specific scheduled method, you can set its cron expression to "off" or "disabled".

application.properties
myMethod.cron.expr=disabled

Property Expressions allow you to define a default value that is used, if the property is not configured.

CRON Config Property Example with default 0 0 15 ? * MON *
@Scheduled(cron = "${myMethod.cron.expr:0 0 15 ? * MON *}")
void myMethod() { }

If the property myMethod.cron.expr is undefined or null, the default value (0 0 15 ? * MON *) will be used.

1.1.2. Intervals

An interval trigger defines a period between invocations. The period expression is based on the ISO-8601 duration format PnDTnHnMn.nS and the value of @Scheduled#every() is parsed with java.time.Duration#parse(CharSequence). However, if an expression starts with a digit then the PT prefix is added automatically. So for example, 15m can be used instead of PT15M and is parsed as "15 minutes".

Interval Trigger Example
@Scheduled(every = "15m")
void every15Mins() { }

The every attribute supports Property Expressions including default values and nested Property Expressions. (Note that "{property.path}" style expressions are still supported but don’t offer the full functionality of Property Expressions.)

Interval Config Property Example
@Scheduled(every = "${myMethod.every.expr}")
void myMethod() { }

Intervals can be disabled by setting their value to "off" or "disabled". So for example a Property Expression with the default value "off" can be used to disable the trigger if its Config Property has not been set.

Interval Config Property Example with a Default Value
@Scheduled(every = "${myMethod.every.expr:off}")
void myMethod() { }

1.2. Identity

By default, a unique id is generated for each scheduled method. This id is used in log messages and during debugging. Sometimes a possibility to specify an explicit id may come in handy.

Identity Example
@Scheduled(identity = "myScheduledMethod")
void myMethod() { }

The identity attribute supports Property Expressions including default values and nested Property Expressions. (Note that "{property.path}" style expressions are still supported but don’t offer the full functionality of Property Expressions.)

Interval Config Property Example
@Scheduled(identity = "${myMethod.identity.expr}")
void myMethod() { }

1.3. Delayed Execution

@Scheduled provides two ways to delay the time a trigger should start firing at.

@Scheduled#delay() and @Scheduled#delayUnit() form the initial delay together.

@Scheduled(every = "2s", delay = 2, delayUnit = TimeUnit.HOUR) (1)
void everyTwoSeconds() { }
1 The trigger fires for the first time two hours after the application start.
The final value is always rounded to full second.

@Scheduled#delayed() is a text alternative to the properties above. The period expression is based on the ISO-8601 duration format PnDTnHnMn.nS and the value is parsed with java.time.Duration#parse(CharSequence). However, if an expression starts with a digit, the PT prefix is added automatically. So for example, 15s can be used instead of PT15S and is parsed as "15 seconds".

@Scheduled(every = "2s", delayed = "2h")
void everyTwoSeconds() { }
If @Scheduled#delay() is set to a value greater than zero the value of @Scheduled#delayed() is ignored.

The main advantage over @Scheduled#delay() is that the value is configurable. The delay attribute supports Property Expressions including default values and nested Property Expressions. (Note that "{property.path}" style expressions are still supported but don’t offer the full functionality of Property Expressions.)

@Scheduled(every = "2s", delayed = "${myMethod.delay.expr}") (1)
void everyTwoSeconds() { }
1 The config property myMethod.delay.expr is used to set the delay.

1.4. Concurrent Execution

By default, a scheduled method can be executed concurrently. Nevertheless, it is possible to specify the strategy to handle concurrent executions via @Scheduled#concurrentExecution().

import static io.quarkus.scheduler.Scheduled.ConcurrentExecution.SKIP;

@Scheduled(every = "1s", concurrentExecution = SKIP) (1)
void nonConcurrent() {
  // we can be sure that this method is never executed concurrently
}
1 Concurrent executions are skipped.
A CDI event of type io.quarkus.scheduler.SkippedExecution is fired when an execution of a scheduled method is skipped.
Note that only executions within the same application instance are considered. This feature is not intended to work across the cluster.

1.5. Conditional Execution

You can define the logic to skip any execution of a scheduled method via @Scheduled#skipExecutionIf(). The specified bean class must implement io.quarkus.scheduler.Scheduled.SkipPredicate and the execution is skipped if the result of the test() method is true.

class Jobs {

   @Scheduled(every = "1s", skipExecutionIf = MyPredicate.class) (1)
   void everySecond() {
     // do something every second...
   }
}

@Singleton (2)
class MyPredicate implements SkipPredicate {

   @Inject
   MyService service;

   boolean test(ScheduledExecution execution) {
       return !service.isStarted(); (3)
   }
}
1 A bean instance of MyPredicate.class is used to evaluate whether an execution should be skipped. There must be exactly one bean that has the specified class in its set of bean types, otherwise the build fails.
2 The scope of the bean must be active during execution.
3 Jobs.everySecond() is skipped until MyService.isStarted() returns true.

Note that this is an equivalent of the following code:

class Jobs {

   @Inject
   MyService service;

   @Scheduled(every = "1s")
   void everySecond() {
     if (service.isStarted()) {
        // do something every second...
     }
   }
}

The main idea is to keep the the logic to skip the execution outside the scheduled business methods so that it can be reused and refactored easily.

A CDI event of type io.quarkus.scheduler.SkippedExecution is fired when an execution of a scheduled method is skipped.

2. Scheduler

Quarkus provides a built-in bean of type io.quarkus.scheduler.Scheduler that can be injected and used to pause/resume the scheduler and individual scheduled methods identified by a specific Scheduled#identity().

Scheduler Injection Example
import io.quarkus.scheduler.Scheduler;

class MyService {

   @Inject
   Scheduler scheduler;

   void ping() {
      scheduler.pause(); (1)
      scheduler.pause("myIdentity"); (2)
      if (scheduler.isRunning()) {
         throw new IllegalStateException("This should never happen!");
      }
      scheduler.resume("myIdentity"); (3)
      scheduler.resume(); (4)
   }
}
1 Pause all triggers.
2 Pause a specific scheduled method by its identity
3 Resume a specific scheduled method by its identity
4 Resume the scheduler.

3. Programmatic Scheduling

If you need to schedule a job programmatically you’ll need to add the Quartz extension and use the Quartz API directly.

Programmatic Scheduling with Quartz API
import org.quartz.Scheduler;

class MyJobs {

    void onStart(@Observes StartupEvent event, Scheduler quartz) throws SchedulerException {
        JobDetail job = JobBuilder.newJob(SomeJob.class)
                .withIdentity("myJob", "myGroup")
                .build();
        Trigger trigger = TriggerBuilder.newTrigger()
                .withIdentity("myTrigger", "myGroup")
                .startNow()
                .withSchedule(SimpleScheduleBuilder.simpleSchedule()
                        .withIntervalInSeconds(1)
                        .repeatForever())
                .build();
        quartz.scheduleJob(job, trigger);
    }
}
By default, the scheduler is not started unless a @Scheduled business method is found. You may need to force the start of the scheduler for "pure" programmatic scheduling. See also Quartz Configuration Reference.

4. Scheduled Methods and Testing

It is often desirable to disable the scheduler when running the tests. The scheduler can be disabled through the runtime config property quarkus.scheduler.enabled. If set to false the scheduler is not started even though the application contains scheduled methods. You can even disable the scheduler for particular Test Profiles.

5. Metrics

Some basic metrics are published out of the box if quarkus.scheduler.metrics.enabled is set to true and a metrics extension is present.

If the Micrometer extension is present, then a @io.micrometer.core.annotation.Timed interceptor binding is added to all @Scheduled methods automatically (unless it’s already present) and a io.micrometer.core.instrument.Timer with name scheduled.methods and a io.micrometer.core.instrument.LongTaskTimer with name scheduled.methods.running are registered. The fully qualified name of the declaring class and the name of a @Scheduled method are used as tags.

If the SmallRye Metrics extension is present, then a @org.eclipse.microprofile.metrics.annotation.Timed interceptor binding is added to all @Scheduled methods automatically (unless it’s already present) and a org.eclipse.microprofile.metrics.Timer is created for each @Scheduled method. The name consists of the fully qualified name of the declaring class and the name of a @Scheduled method. The timer has a tag scheduled=true.

6. Configuration Reference

Configuration property fixed at build time - All other configuration properties are overridable at runtime

Configuration property

Type

Default

The syntax used in CRON expressions.

cron4j, quartz, unix, spring

quartz

Scheduled task metrics will be enabled if a metrics extension is present and this value is true.

boolean

false

If schedulers are enabled.

boolean

true