Cron-based scheduling

[RealOrangeOne]

It's currently possible to execute a task after a given time with run_after. However, it's not possible to schedule a task "At 3am every day", for example.

[jribbens]

I've mentioned this in issue #22. I think this is a vital feature for a 1.0 release. Even the database backend for django-tasks itself needs it, for expiring old tasks from the database.

[RealOrangeOne]

I wouldn't consider it a "requirement". It's important, and useful, but you can always use an external scheduler for the cleanup, which is probably what people are using to run manage.py clearsessions

[jribbens]

I'd be willing to bet a huge number of installations (perhaps most) are simply not running clearsessions...

[chrisgrande]

Any thought to if scheduling should be possibly database backed? Similar to how django-celery-beat works? Or just in code registration?

One thing I would like would be a syntax similar to Laravel, it just reads better compared to cron syntax:

ScheduleTask("tasks.send_email").daily().weekdays().at("01:30")

[RealOrangeOne]

When it's supported, yes it should work with the database backend.

As for the syntax, it might end up being something more static. Perhaps as arguments to the @task decorator. But I agree I think literal cron syntax can be confusing, and in many ways limiting.

[jribbens]

Database backend is useful of course, but I think it's essential it also works from code. e.g. perhaps something in settings.py and also AppConfig - you want to be able to distribute apps that need, say, a daily background task without having to say "after installing this app, manually add an entry to the ScheduledTasks database table saying <...>"

[RealOrangeOne]

It could be something more dynamic, similar to how permissions work, but I agree the point of this is that it should be low-friction, so it shouldn't require any manual steps. Which is why I suggested something more module-level as opposed to something you might be tempted to define as part of say a view.

Keeping the state the database might work, and is probably required for concurrency reasons.