Turborepo · Job board · Six rules for error handling in turborepo-jobs that I settled on

846
TUr/turborepo-jobs·posted by mike_xu·2 hours agoReview

Six rules for error handling in turborepo-jobs that I settled on

Short version: turborepo-jobs needs almost no tuning at small and medium scale — the point where it starts to hurt is much further out than most people assume. Full measurements below.

// Minimal reproduction: you must use a real long-tail distribution here.
// Uniform load-test traffic will never trigger this.
func (s *Server) handle(ctx context.Context) error {
    conn, err := s.pool.Acquire(ctx)
    if err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("acquire: %w", err)
    }
    defer conn.Release()

    return s.do(ctx, conn)
}

We also fixed monitoring along the way: replaced average-based alerts with percentiles and split them per endpoint. False alerts dropped by about seventy percent and the on-call rotation visibly cheered up.

The first thing was to collapse the variables. We were changing config and upgrading the version at the same time, and afterwards nobody could say which change caused what. We rolled back to moving one variable at a time, re-ran three times, and only then did the curve settle. Tedious, but not skippable.

One last trap: in container environments remember to adjust the memory-related parameters in step. Otherwise the host limit and the process expectation disagree, and the symptom is intermittent, unreproducible failure.

376 comments

376 comments

· first 120 loaded
M
Rrase·3 minutes agoedited

I just read the turborepo-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

519
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

38
Zzhou_yi·2 hours ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

171
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

18
Rran_bo·just now

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

1
Kkite·5 hours ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

291
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

I just read the turborepo-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

31
Kkite·12 minutes ago

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

24
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

390
Nnikic·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

286
Aalice_dev·2 days agoLevel 6

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

253
Sslow_query·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

11
Cchen_devMod·1 hour ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

2
Bbob_chen·5 hours ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

132
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

359
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

103
Lli_ming·2 hours ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

150
Wwinter·3 minutes agoLevel 6

I just read the turborepo-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

12
Hhuang_ke·2 days agoLevel 6

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

2
Hhuang_ke·2 hours ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

6
Mmike_xu·2 days agoLevel 6

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

219
Rrase·2 days agoLevel 6

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

1
Lli_ming·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

1
Oops_wang·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

17
Lli_ming·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

196
Cchen_dev·2 days agoLevel 6

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

69
Llinlin·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

511
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

485
Lli_ming·5 hours ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

9
Llinlin·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

37
Llinlin·2 days agoedited

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

468
Rran_bo·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

405
KkiteOP·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

324
Lli_ming·12 minutes ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

347
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

319
Ddev_zhouMod·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

303
Hhuang_ke·28 minutes ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

20
Aalice_devMod·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

220
Kkite·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

193
Kkite·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

1
Kkernel_panicOP·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

131
RraseOP·1 hour ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

118
Oops_wang·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

152
Sslow_query·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

145
RraseMod·2 days ago

I just read the turborepo-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

9
WwinterMod·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

408
Nnikic·5 hours ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

138
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

128
Sslow_query·yesterday

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

124
Kkite·just now

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

309
Cchen_dev·2 days agoedited

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

191
Oops_wang·2 hours ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

58
Mmike_xu·12 minutes ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

276
Lli_ming·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

169
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

25
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

116
Oops_wang·28 minutes ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

256
Rrase·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

212
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

393
Bbob_chen·2 days agoedited

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

206
Kkite·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

404
Cchen_devMod·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

2
Wwinter·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

324
Aalice_dev·yesterday

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

15
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

122
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

494
Rrase·2 days ago

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

114
Oops_wang·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

203
Nnikic·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

191
Lli_ming·2 days ago

I just read the turborepo-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

109
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

104
Hhuang_ke·2 days agoedited

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

97
Nnikic·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

86
Lli_ming·2 days ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

82
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

82
Aalice_dev·28 minutes ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

81
Llinlin·2 hours ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

69
Lli_ming·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

69
Cchen_devOP·2 days ago

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

7
Aalice_devOP·2 days agoedited

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

6
Sslow_queryOP·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

2
KkiteOP·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

2
Nnikic·2 days agoedited

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

41
Nnikic·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

54
Oops_wang·3 minutes ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

52
Oops_wang·5 hours ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

446
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

338
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

314
Sslow_query·12 minutes ago

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

41
Ddev_zhou·just nowedited

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

29
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

7
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

321
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

300
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

I just read the turborepo-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

106
Lli_mingOP·12 minutes agoedited

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

1
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

3
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

29
Zzhou_yi·2 days agoedited

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

25
Oops_wang·2 days ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

24
Wwinter·5 hours ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

16
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

1
Ttang_hao·2 hours ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

15
Bbob_chenOP·yesterday

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

177
Sswoole_lee·2 days ago

I just read the turborepo-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

24
Ttang_hao·3 minutes ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

7
Wwinter·yesterday

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

110
Rrase·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

7
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

6
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

One counter-example: below turborepo-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

4
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

4
Kkernel_panic·just now

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

4
Kkite·12 minutes ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

3
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

51
Wwinter·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

3
Rran_bo·just now

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

2
Sswoole_lee·2 hours ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

1
Rran_bo·just now

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

1
Cchen_dev·just now

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

1
Mmike_xuMod·5 hours ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

1
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

This is not a turborepo-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

1

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