Global Keys

Global keys are unique identifiers (strings) that enable you to track and correlate tasks across different queues in your organization. They serve as a powerful mechanism to establish relationships between tasks and maintain context throughout your workflow.

Use Cases

Context-Aware Task Processing

When processing a refund request task with the global key user-123, you can easily retrieve all related tasks across different queues like user_complaints or user_support using global_keys__contains. This consolidated view helps in making informed decisions about refund approvals.

A/B Testing

Global keys facilitate version comparison by tagging tasks with identifiers like ai-release_candidate-1 and ai-release_candidate-2. This enables systematic comparison of task outcomes to evaluate different versions of your system.

Resource Usage Analytics

Track resource utilization patterns by using global keys like user-123. Using global_keys__count, you can analyze task distribution across users and identify high-resource consumers, helping optimize resource allocation.

Usage

When creating a task, you can associate it with up to 10 global keys:

{
  "input_data": { ... },
  "global_keys": ["order-123", "customer-456"]
}

Characteristics

• Global keys are user-defined string identifiers
• Each task can be associated with up to 10 global keys
• They are optional but essential for establishing relationships between tasks in complex workflows
• Global keys are immutable after task creation

Query Support

Count-based Queries

You can filter tasks based on their global key count:

• Exact count: global_keys__count
• Minimum count: global_keys__count__gte
• Maximum count: global_keys__count__lte

Content-based Queries

Filter tasks based on specific global keys:

• Include key: global_keys__contains
• Exclude key: global_keys__not__contains

Best Practices

1. Implement consistent naming conventions for global keys
2. Create concise yet descriptive key names
3. Use meaningful prefixes to categorize keys (e.g., order-, customer-)
4. Leverage global keys for cross-queue task correlation
5. Maintain documentation of your global key schema
6. Structure hierarchical relationships in keys (e.g., store-123-order-456)
7. Group related tasks using common key prefixes (e.g., order-123-item-1, order-123-item-2)