Action Scheduler

Description

Action Scheduler is a scalable, traceable job queue for background processing large sets of actions in WordPress. It’s specially designed to be distributed in WordPress plugins.

Action Scheduler works by triggering an action hook to run at some time in the future. Each hook can be scheduled with unique data, to allow callbacks to perform operations on that data. The hook can also be scheduled to run on one or more occasions.

Think of it like an extension to do_action() which adds the ability to delay and repeat a hook.

Battle-Tested Background Processing

Every month, Action Scheduler processes millions of payments for Subscriptions, webhooks for WooCommerce, as well as emails and other events for a range of other plugins.

It’s been seen on live sites processing queues in excess of 50,000 jobs and doing resource intensive operations, like processing payments and creating orders, at a sustained rate of over 10,000 / hour without negatively impacting normal site operations.

This is all on infrastructure and WordPress sites outside the control of the plugin author.

If your plugin needs background processing, especially of large sets of tasks, Action Scheduler can help.

Learn More

To learn more about how to Action Scheduler works, and how to use it in your plugin, check out the docs on ActionScheduler.org.

There you will find:

• Usage guide: instructions on installing and using Action Scheduler
• WP CLI guide: instructions on running Action Scheduler at scale via WP CLI
• API Reference: complete reference guide for all API functions
• Administration Guide: guide to managing scheduled actions via the administration screen
• Guide to Background Processing at Scale: instructions for running Action Scheduler at scale via the default WP Cron queue runner

Credits

Action Scheduler is developed and maintained by Automattic with significant early development completed by Flightless.

Collaboration is cool. We’d love to work with you to improve Action Scheduler. Pull Requests welcome.

Reviews

Incredibly powerful

Auke Piersma March 18, 2024 1 reply

What this plugin/library adds to WordPress is incredibly powerful. It’s asynchronous execution of actions gives developers incredible possibilities. The fact that plugin developers have the option to integrate this plugin/library into their own plugins is fantastic. Keep up the good work!

Like a Leech

traqbar March 5, 2024 6 replies

Only tested it, I didnt like it, and now it wont leave. Manually removing tables – crashes my site. Sucking the life out of my server. I have to ask support for how to get rid of it. Horrible Horrible

This is malware

Alexander Guskov December 17, 2023 7 replies

This plugin is a classical malware:1) it acts hidden: it integrates in Wordpress core, don’t identificate itself for site owner, don’t allow any management of it’s activity or control for site owner. 2) It secretly and non-stop (every minute) allocates all server resources displacing all useful processes like processing user’s requests and all others too. It slow down site in times. From my experience “server response time” decreased from 7-8s to 1,2s just as I started to limit this malware, but I still can’t stop or remove it completely (there is no woocommerce on my site, but I believe that it were the result would be more impressive). 3) It acts as extension to Wordpress’s wp_cron service. All that it does can be done under pure wp_cron but not hidden and without slowing down site. So, it’s crear to understand that if some other plugin use Scheduled Actions it does it only to hide something from site owner eyes or/and slow down site (probably to upsale pro version that acts without Scheduled Actions. 4) There is no way how to completely stop neither uninstall it neither remove it’s actions neither it’s wp_cron task. 5) It’s impossible just to short circle some functions in it to stop it’s working – it’s code made the way that it break site down if someone try to stop it. I have found the way to limit it’s activity but can’t stop it completely. 6) All question to developers regarding this behavior return with answer like “it runs as we wish, keep enjoying slow down your site” or buy our other plugins or employ us to find why your site is slow down. Explanations about clear difference with Scheduled Actions working as they with and limited they just ignore. I strictly advice plugin developer run a mile of this malware otherwise site owners have to remove already your plugins accusing already you in the fatal slow of their sites and probably with criminal charge (at least in EU).

Great time savior plugin

unapersona June 28, 2023

A must-use if you want to schedule any type of task, no more wp_schedule headaches.

Refuses to Support

Kevin Pirnie March 22, 2023 1 reply

Developers refuse to support their own plugin. I have no use for something that does not work, and something the developers will not support. Cannot and will not recommend to anyone… sadly will not make much of a difference because it’s in use in every site that utilizes WooCommerce, but, whatever…

Needs code placement instructions

welcomeblack November 8, 2022 2 replies

Look, I’m fine with having to do some coding. After all, I want to write my own php code to be called every five minutes or so. But you have to tell me WHERE to put the calls. I’ve installed your service via plugin, and your usage page (actionscheduler [dot] org [slash] usage) tells me exactly nothing about where I need to make these API calls. Is it function.php in my home WP directory? Can I make these calls from my own self-made directory? Tell me!

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

3.9.0 – 2024-11-14

• Minimum required version of PHP is now 7.1.
• Performance improvements for the as_pending_actions_due() function.
• Existing filter hook action_scheduler_claim_actions_order_by enhanced to provide callbacks with additional information.
• Improved compatibility with PHP 8.4, specifically by making implicitly nullable parameters explicitly nullable.
• A large number of coding standards-enhancements, to help reduce friction when submitting plugins to marketplaces and plugin directories. Special props @crstauf for this effort.
• Minor documentation tweaks and improvements.

3.8.2 – 2024-09-12

• Add missing parameter to the pre_as_enqueue_async_action hook.
• Bump minimum PHP version to 7.0.
• Bump minimum WordPress version to 6.4.
• Make the batch size adjustable during processing.

3.8.1 – 2024-06-20

• Fix typos.
• Improve the messaging in our unidentified action exceptions.

3.8.0 – 2024-05-22

• Documentation – Fixed typos in perf.md.
• Update – We now require WordPress 6.3 or higher.
• Update – We now require PHP 7.0 or higher.

3.7.4 – 2024-04-05

• Give a clear description of how the $unique parameter works.
• Preserve the tab field if set.
• Tweak – WP 6.5 compatibility.

3.7.3 – 2024-03-20

• Do not iterate over all of GET when building form in list table.
• Fix a few issues reported by PCP (Plugin Check Plugin).
• Try to save actions as unique even when the store doesn’t support it.
• Tweak – WP 6.4 compatibility.
• Update “Tested up to” tag to WordPress 6.5.
• update version in package-lock.json.

3.7.2 – 2024-02-14

• No longer user variables in _n() translation function.

3.7.1 – 2023-12-13

• update semver to 5.7.2 because of a security vulnerability in 5.7.1.

3.7.0 – 2023-11-20

• Important: starting with this release, Action Scheduler follows an L-2 version policy (WordPress, and consequently PHP).
• Add extended indexes for hook_status_scheduled_date_gmt and status_scheduled_date_gmt.
• Catch and log exceptions thrown when actions can’t be created, e.g. under a corrupt database schema.
• Tweak – WP 6.4 compatibility.
• Update unit tests for upcoming dependency version policy.
• make sure hook action_scheduler_failed_execution can access original exception object.
• mention dependency version policy in usage.md.

3.6.4 – 2023-10-11

• Performance improvements when bulk cancelling actions.
• Dev-related fixes.

3.6.3 – 2023-09-13

• Use _doing_it_wrong in initialization check.

3.6.2 – 2023-08-09

• Add guidance about passing arguments.
• Atomic option locking.
• Improve bulk delete handling.
• Include database error in the exception message.
• Tweak – WP 6.3 compatibility.

3.6.1 – 2023-06-14

• Document new optional $priority arg for various API functions.
• Document the new --exclude-groups WP CLI option.
• Document the new action_scheduler_init hook.
• Ensure actions within each claim are executed in the expected order.
• Fix incorrect text domain.
• Remove SHOW TABLES usage when checking if tables exist.

3.6.0 – 2023-05-10

• Add $unique parameter to function signatures.
• Add a cast-to-int for extra safety before forming new DateTime object.
• Add a hook allowing exceptions for consistently failing recurring actions.
• Add action priorities.
• Add init hook.
• Always raise the time limit.
• Bump minimatch from 3.0.4 to 3.0.8.
• Bump yaml from 2.2.1 to 2.2.2.
• Defensive coding relating to gaps in declared schedule types.
• Do not process an action if it cannot be set to in-progress.
• Filter view labels (status names) should be translatable | #919.
• Fix WPCLI progress messages.
• Improve data-store initialization flow.
• Improve error handling across all supported PHP versions.
• Improve logic for flushing the runtime cache.
• Support exclusion of multiple groups.
• Update lint-staged and Node/NPM requirements.
• add CLI clean command.
• add CLI exclude-group filter.
• exclude past-due from list table all filter count.
• throwing an exception if as_schedule_recurring_action interval param is not of type integer.

3.5.4 – 2023-01-17

• Add pre filters during action registration.
• Async scheduling.
• Calculate timeouts based on total actions.
• Correctly order the parameters for ActionScheduler_ActionFactory‘s calls to single_unique.
• Fetch action in memory first before releasing claim to avoid deadlock.
• PHP 8.2: declare property to fix creation of dynamic property warning.
• PHP 8.2: fix “Using ${var} in strings is deprecated, use {$var} instead”.
• Prevent undefined variable warning for $num_pastdue_actions.

3.5.3 – 2022-11-09

• Query actions with partial match.

3.5.2 – 2022-09-16

• Fix – erroneous 3.5.1 release.

3.5.1 – 2022-09-13

• Maintenance on A/S docs.
• fix: PHP 8.2 deprecated notice.

3.5.0 – 2022-08-25

• Add – The active view link within the “Tools > Scheduled Actions” screen is now clickable.
• Add – A warning when there are past-due actions.
• Enhancement – Added the ability to schedule unique actions via an atomic operation.
• Enhancement – Improvements to cache invalidation when processing batches (when running on WordPress 6.0+).
• Enhancement – If a recurring action is found to be consistently failing, it will stop being rescheduled.
• Enhancement – Adds a new “Past Due” view to the scheduled actions list table.

3.4.2 – 2022-06-08

• Fix – Change the include for better linting.
• Fix – update: Added Action scheduler completed action hook.

3.4.1 – 2022-05-24

• Fix – Change the include for better linting.
• Fix – Fix the documented return type.

3.4.0 – 2021-10-29

• Enhancement – Number of items per page can now be set for the Scheduled Actions view (props @ovidiul). #771
• Fix – Do not lower the max_execution_time if it is already set to 0 (unlimited) (props @barryhughes). #755
• Fix – Avoid triggering autoloaders during the version resolution process (props @olegabr). #731 & #776
• Dev – ActionScheduler_wcSystemStatus PHPCS fixes (props @ovidiul). #761
• Dev – ActionScheduler_DBLogger.php PHPCS fixes (props @ovidiul). #768
• Dev – Fixed phpcs for ActionScheduler_Schedule_Deprecated (props @ovidiul). #762
• Dev – Improve actions table indices (props @glagonikas). #774 & #777
• Dev – PHPCS fixes for ActionScheduler_DBStore.php (props @ovidiul). #769 & #778
• Dev – PHPCS Fixes for ActionScheduler_Abstract_ListTable (props @ovidiul). #763 & #779
• Dev – Adds new filter action_scheduler_claim_actions_order_by to allow tuning of the claim query (props @glagonikas). #773
• Dev – PHPCS fixes for ActionScheduler_WpPostStore class (props @ovidiul). #780

3.3.0 – 2021-09-15

• Enhancement – Adds as_has_scheduled_action() to provide a performant way to test for existing actions. #645
• Fix – Improves compatibility with environments where NO_ZERO_DATE is enabled. #519
• Fix – Adds safety checks to guard against errors when our database tables cannot be created. #645
• Dev – Now supports queries that use multiple statuses. #649
• Dev – Minimum requirements for WordPress and PHP bumped (to 5.2 and 5.6 respectively). #723

3.2.1 – 2021-06-21

• Fix – Add extra safety/account for different versions of AS and different loading patterns. #714
• Fix – Handle hidden columns (Tools → Scheduled Actions) | #600.

3.2.0 – 2021-06-03

• Fix – Add “no ordering” option to as_next_scheduled_action().
• Fix – Add secondary scheduled date checks when claiming actions (DBStore) | #634.
• Fix – Add secondary scheduled date checks when claiming actions (wpPostStore) | #634.
• Fix – Adds a new index to the action table, reducing the potential for deadlocks (props: @glagonikas).
• Fix – Fix unit tests infrastructure and adapt tests to PHP 8.
• Fix – Identify in-use data store.
• Fix – Improve test_migration_is_scheduled.
• Fix – PHP notice on list table.
• Fix – Speed up clean up and batch selects.
• Fix – Update pending dependencies.
• Fix – [PHP 8.0] Only pass action arg values through to do_action_ref_array().
• Fix – [PHP 8] Set the PHP version to 7.1 in composer.json for PHP 8 compatibility.
• Fix – add is_initialized() to docs.
• Fix – fix file permissions.
• Fix – fixes #664 by replacing __ with esc_html__.