Sidekiq Lifecycle Hooks

Async model lifecycle hooks for Rails, using Sidekiq.

This Ruby on Rails gem lets you replace after_create, after_update, and after_destroy with asynchronous equivelants, improving the performance and decreasing the memory usage of your web server.

Ideal for offloading notifications, analytics, webhooks, large DB writes and anything else that doesn't need to delay your response.

This approach is generally easier to write and maintain than creating a whole sidekiq job for every little task. The ease of use also encourages good async hygiene.

Installation

Setup Sidekiq as your background task runner.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'sidekiq_lifecycle_hooks'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Include SidekiqLifecycleHooks in your ApplicationRecord

class ApplicationRecord < ActiveRecord::Base
  include SidekiqLifecycleHooks
end

Usage

In each model, replace any synchronous lifecycle hooks with the following:

class MyModel < ApplicationRecord

  # Replace these:
  after_create :report_to_analytics
  after_update :something_else
  after_destroy :another_thing

  # With these:
  def async_after_create_actions
    report_to_analytics
    # and_you_can_add_more_than_one ...
  end

  def async_after_update_actions
    something_else
  end

  def async_after_destroy_actions # READ NOTE BELOW
    another_thing
  end

end

How it works

These methods enqueue a Sidekiq job called LifecycleJob which loads your model (or a shallow clone, if after deleting), then runs any methods required.

Usage notes

after_destroy creates a shallow clone

async_after_destroy_actions instantiates YourObject.new(previous_object_attributes) and then runs the methods from this new model.

Any child models of the original will already have been destroyed or rendered inaccessible. If you require those, use a regular before_destroy hook.

Separate mission critical actions

Errors prevent subsequent methods from running.

  def async_after_create_actions
    report_to_analytics
    raise # Oops
    create_slack_notification # Will not run
  end

Enqueue mission critical tasks in seperate Sidekiq jobs.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/WillTaylor22/sidekiq_lifecycle_hooks. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration. Please be chill in this project's codebase and issue tracker.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Notes to self

To deploy a new version

• Update the version number & changelog
• gem build sidekiq_lifecycle_hooks.gemspec
• gem push sidekiq_lifecycle_hooks-1.X.0.gem
• push to repo