Trigger.dev Has a Free API You Should Know About

#triggerdev #background #typescript #api

Trigger.dev runs long-running background jobs with zero infrastructure — and the free tier includes 50K runs per month.

Define a Task

// trigger/tasks.ts
import { task } from '@trigger.dev/sdk/v3'

export const processOrder = task({
  id: 'process-order',
  run: async (payload: { orderId: string }) => {
    // Step 1: Validate order
    const order = await db.order.findUnique({ where: { id: payload.orderId } })

    // Step 2: Charge payment (can take 30+ seconds)
    const payment = await stripe.charges.create({
      amount: order.total,
      currency: 'usd',
      customer: order.customerId
    })

    // Step 3: Send confirmation
    await resend.emails.send({
      to: order.email,
      subject: 'Order Confirmed',
      html: `Your order ${order.id} is confirmed!`
    })

    return { paymentId: payment.id }
  }
})

Trigger from Your App

// In your API route
import { processOrder } from '@/trigger/tasks'

export async function POST(request) {
  const { orderId } = await request.json()

  // Trigger the background job
  const handle = await processOrder.trigger({ orderId })

  // Return immediately — job runs in background
  return Response.json({ jobId: handle.id, status: 'processing' })
}

Scheduled Tasks (Cron)

import { schedules } from '@trigger.dev/sdk/v3'

export const dailyReport = schedules.task({
  id: 'daily-report',
  cron: '0 9 * * *', // Every day at 9 AM
  run: async () => {
    const stats = await computeDailyStats()
    await sendSlackMessage('#reports', formatStats(stats))
  }
})

Fan-out / Batch Processing

export const processCSV = task({
  id: 'process-csv',
  run: async (payload: { fileUrl: string }) => {
    const rows = await parseCSV(payload.fileUrl)

    // Process all rows in parallel
    const results = await processRow.batchTriggerAndWait(
      rows.map(row => ({ payload: row }))
    )

    return { processed: results.length }
  }
})

export const processRow = task({
  id: 'process-row',
  run: async (row: CSVRow) => {
    await db.record.upsert({
      where: { externalId: row.id },
      create: row,
      update: row
    })
  }
})

Real-World Use Case

A team was using BullMQ + Redis for background jobs: order processing, email sending, PDF generation. Each job needed error handling, retries, logging. They moved to Trigger.dev: each task is a TypeScript function, retries are automatic, monitoring is built-in. They deleted their Redis instance and 500 lines of queue management code.

Trigger.dev is background jobs without the infrastructure tax.

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