Pick the order your graph wants

When more tasks are ready than workers, something picks which one
starts. Without timings every rule is a guess, and
each guess loses some graph. Now you pick
the guess:

// vx.workspace.ts
export default {
  schedule: 'critical-path',
}

schedule	Starts first
most-work (default)	The task the most work waits on, at any depth
critical-path	The task at the head of the longest chain of tasks
direct-dependents	The task the most tasks wait on directly
ready-order	The task that became ready first

Plugins still lead

A schedule plugin such as
@vzn/vx-schedule-history ranks
tasks by recorded time. Its ranking still comes first under every
strategy. The strategy only breaks its ties, and decides the order for
tasks the plugin has no timing for yet.

It costs nothing unless you set it

The default runs the same code as before. Another strategy is computed
only when the workspace names it, and each is one pass over the graph.

Which one?

Keep the default unless you know your graph. If a slow task with
nothing after it (a typecheck, a lint) keeps starting late, try
ready-order or add the history plugin. If long chains of small tasks
finish last, try critical-path. Once the history plugin has a run to
learn from, it picks a better order than any of these.

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Originally published on the vx blog. vx is an MIT task runner and build cache for JS monorepos: vznjs.github.io/vx · GitHub.

_{Written with AI assistance.}