inngest

What is inngest?

Inngest is a JavaScript library designed to simplify the process of building event-driven applications. It provides tools for creating, managing, and executing serverless functions in response to events, making it easier to build scalable and efficient applications.

What are inngest's main functionalities?

Event Creation

This feature allows you to create events that can be used to trigger functions. The code sample demonstrates how to create a new event with a specific name and data payload.

const { Inngest } = require('inngest');
const inngest = new Inngest({ name: 'My App' });

const event = inngest.createEvent({
  name: 'user.signup',
  data: { userId: '12345' }
});

Function Registration

This feature allows you to register functions that will be executed in response to specific events. The code sample shows how to register a function that sends a welcome email when a 'user.signup' event occurs.

const { Inngest } = require('inngest');
const inngest = new Inngest({ name: 'My App' });

inngest.registerFunction('Send Welcome Email', 'user.signup', async (event) => {
  console.log(`Sending welcome email to user ${event.data.userId}`);
});

Event Handling

This feature allows you to define how events are handled when they occur. The code sample demonstrates how to handle a 'user.signup' event by logging a message.

const { Inngest } = require('inngest');
const inngest = new Inngest({ name: 'My App' });

inngest.handleEvent('user.signup', async (event) => {
  console.log(`Handling signup for user ${event.data.userId}`);
});

Other packages similar to inngest

aws-sdk

The AWS SDK for JavaScript provides a comprehensive set of tools for interacting with AWS services, including Lambda for serverless functions. While it offers more extensive cloud service integration, it requires more setup and configuration compared to the simplicity of Inngest.

serverless

The Serverless Framework is a popular tool for building and deploying serverless applications. It provides a robust ecosystem for managing serverless functions across various cloud providers. Compared to Inngest, it offers more deployment and infrastructure management features but may have a steeper learning curve.

firebase-functions

Firebase Functions is a serverless framework for building event-driven applications on Google Cloud. It integrates seamlessly with other Firebase services, making it a good choice for applications already using Firebase. Inngest, on the other hand, is more focused on event handling and function execution without being tied to a specific cloud provider.

README

Inngest is the reliability layer for modern applications. It combines durable execution, events, and queues into a zero-infra platform with built-in observability.

Inngest enables serverless event-driven queues, background jobs, and scheduled jobs for TypeScript. Works with any framework and platform.

Read the documentation and get started in minutes.

On any serverless platform (Next.js, Deno Deploy, RedwoodJS, AWS Lambda, and anything else) and with no extra infrastructure:

• ⚡ Write background jobs
• 🕐 Create scheduled and cron jobs
• ♻️ Build serverless queues
• 🪜 Write complex step functions
• 🚘 Build serverless event-driven systems
• 🪝 Reliably respond to webhooks, with retries and payloads stored for history

👋 Have a question or feature request? Join our Discord!

Getting started · Features · Contributing · Documentation

Getting started

Install Inngest:

npm install inngest  # or yarn add inngest

Writing functions

Write serverless functions and background jobs right in your own code:

import { Inngest } from "inngest";

const inngest = new Inngest({ id: "my-app" });

// This function will be invoked by Inngest via HTTP any time
// the "app/user.signup" event is sent to to Inngest
export default inngest.createFunction(
  { id: "user-onboarding-communication" },
  { event: "app/user.signup" },
  async ({ event, step }) => {
    await step.run("Send welcome email", async () => {
      await sendEmail({
        email: event.data.email,
        template: "welcome",
      });
    });
  }
);

• Functions are triggered by events which can be sent via this SDK, webhooks, integrations, or with a simple HTTP request.
• When a matching event is received, Inngest invokes the function automatically, with built-in retries.

Serving your functions

Inngest invokes functions via HTTP, so you need to serve them using an adapter for the framework of your choice. See all frameworks here in our docs. Here is an example using the Next.js serve handler:

// /pages/api/inngest.ts
import { Inngest } from "inngest";
// See the "inngest/next" adapter imported here:
import { serve } from "inngest/next";
import myFunction from "../userOnboardingCOmmunication"; // see above function

// You can create this in a single file and import where it's needed
const inngest = new Inngest({ id: "my-app" });

// Securely serve your Inngest functions for remote invocation:
export default serve(inngest, [myFunction]);

Sending events to trigger functions

// Send events
import { Inngest } from "inngest";
const inngest = new Inngest({ id: "my-app" });

// This will run the function above automatically, in the background
inngest.send("app/user.signup", {
  data: { email: "[e-mail]", user_id: "12345" },
});

• Events can trigger one or more functions automatically, enabling you to fan-out work.
• Inngest stores a history of all events for observability, testing, and replay.

Features

• Fully serverless: Run background jobs, scheduled functions, and build event-driven systems without any servers, state, or setup
• Works with your framework: Works with Next.js, Redwood, Express, Cloudflare Pages, Nuxt, Fresh (Deno), and Remix
• Deploy anywhere: Keep deploying to your existing platform: Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare, Deno, Digital Ocean, etc.
• Use your existing code: Write functions within your current project and repo
• Fully typed: Event schemas, versioning, and governance out of the box
• Observable: A full UI for managing and inspecting your functions

Contributing

Check out CONTRIBUTING.md to get started.