Welcome to the Trigger.dev docs

Quick start

Get started with Trigger.dev and run your first task in 3 minutes

Guides, frameworks & examples

Browse our wide range of guides, frameworks and example projects

MCP Server

Learn how to install and configure the Trigger.dev MCP Server

Video walkthrough

Watch an end-to-end demo of Trigger.dev in 10 minutes

What is Trigger.dev?

Trigger.dev is an open source background jobs framework that lets you write reliable workflows in plain async code. Run long-running AI tasks, handle complex background jobs, and build AI agents with built-in queuing, automatic retries, and real-time monitoring. No timeouts, elastic scaling, and zero infrastructure management required. We provide everything you need to build and manage background tasks: a CLI and SDK for writing tasks in your existing codebase, support for both regular and scheduled tasks, full observability through our dashboard, and a Realtime API with React hooks for showing task status in your frontend. You can use Trigger.dev Cloud or self-host on your own infrastructure.

Learn the concepts

Writing tasks

Tasks are the core of Trigger.dev. Learn what they are and how to write them.

Triggering tasks

Learn how to trigger tasks from your codebase.

Runs

Runs are the instances of tasks that are executed. Learn how they work.

API keys

API keys are used to authenticate requests to the Trigger.dev API. Learn how to create and use them.

Explore by feature

Scheduled tasks (cron)

Scheduled tasks are a type of task that is scheduled to run at a specific time.

Realtime API

The Realtime API allows you to trigger tasks and get the status of runs.

React hooks

React hooks are a way to show task status in your frontend.

Waits

Waits are a way to wait for a task to finish before continuing.

Errors and retries

Learn how to handle errors and retries.

Concurrency & Queues

Configure what you want to happen when there is more than one run at a time.

Wait for token (human-in-the-loop)

Pause runs until a token is completed via an approval workflow.

Build extensions

Customize the build process or the resulting bundle and container image.

Explore by build extension

Extension	What it does	Docs
prismaExtension	Use Prisma with Trigger.dev	Learn more
pythonExtension	Execute Python scripts in Trigger.dev	Learn more
playwright	Use Playwright with Trigger.dev	Learn more
puppeteer	Use Puppeteer with Trigger.dev	Learn more
lightpanda	Use Lightpanda with Trigger.dev	Learn more
ffmpeg	Use FFmpeg with Trigger.dev	Learn more
aptGet	Install system packages with aptGet	Learn more
additionalFiles	Copy additional files to the build directory	Learn more
additionalPackages	Include additional packages in the build	Learn more
syncEnvVars	Automatically sync environment variables to Trigger.dev	Learn more
esbuildPlugin	Add existing or custom esbuild plugins to your build process	Learn more
emitDecoratorMetadata	Support for the emitDecoratorMetadata TypeScript compiler	Learn more
audioWaveform	Support for Audio Waveform in your project	Learn more