Spooler
A simple, managed message queue
About
Spooler is a durable, fully managed message queue designed for background jobs, webhook delivery, and worker coordination. It offers a simple send/recv API with lease‑based retries, an atomic ack‑and‑send operation, and built‑in state‑machine modeling. Each queue lives in a spool that uses a write‑ahead log and replication for durability. The service is inspired by Go channels but eliminates the need to self‑host or write custom queue logic.
The case
Who it is for
Engineers building background jobs or webhook delivery systems who need a lightweight, managed queue without complex setup.
What is broken today
When building background processing or webhook delivery, teams often add a full queue system that adds complexity, or use a relational database and invent queue semantics on the fly. Existing systems are too feature‑heavy or require self‑hosting, making them overkill for simple send/recv with retries.
What it does about it
Spooler provides a durable, fully managed queue where you can send a message, receive it with a lease, acknowledge it, and optionally send another message atomically. Messages are stored in a spool with a write‑ahead log and replication to ensure durability, and time‑outs trigger re‑delivery or failure after retry limits.
Why not the obvious alternative
Unlike heavyweight queue services or DIY database queues, Spooler offers an atomic ack‑and‑send operation, built‑in state‑machine modeling via queues, and simple lease‑based retries, all without requiring you to manage infrastructure or write custom queue logic.
Details
Considered instead of
Named by the maker, not measured by us. It tells you what this is competing with, not which one wins.
Questions
- Is Spooler self-hosted?
- No, the server is closed source; currently only the managed service is available.
- What languages does Spooler support?
- It provides a Go library and CLI; other languages can use the HTTP API.
- Does Spooler guarantee message durability?
- Yes, messages are written to a write‑ahead log and replicated; operations are considered durable only after replication.
- How do I test Spooler locally?
- Use the Docker image at docs.spooler.sh/local; it provides an in‑memory server with the same API.
- What happens if a message is not acknowledged?
- The lease expires, and the message is returned to the queue for redelivery, or moved to a failed state after too many retries.
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