Transloadit

What is the Live Queue?

The Live Queue is Transloadit’s shared fast lane for Encoding Jobs that require near-real-time handling; direct file uploads place jobs there by default. Jobs exceeding a Workspace’s regional Priority Job Slots wait in a Backup Queue and rejoin the Live Queue as slots free up.

How the Live Queue works

This processing lane serves direct-upload work ahead of nonurgent imported or explicitly batched jobs. It is shared across customers, while each Workspace’s regional Priority Job Slots bound how much of its work can occupy the lane at once. Excess live jobs wait in a Backup Queue and return as their Workspace releases slots. Operationally, queue residence, Robot execution time, and end-to-end Assembly duration are separate measurements and should be monitored independently.

Key facts

  1. Direct uploads normally create Live Queue jobs, while import Steps that fetch multiple files in one Assembly are placed in the Batch Queue; a Step can also opt into batch treatment with its queue setting.
  2. Live work is prioritized over shared batch work, but priority does not mean unbounded parallelism: each concurrently running job consumes slots according to its Robot’s slot claim.
  3. Queue wait estimates are exposed by processing region and measured in seconds, which lets admission logic distinguish platform backlog from a slow individual encode.

When the Live Queue matters

Reserve Live Queue capacity for jobs with meaningful latency requirements. Bursts beyond the plan’s Priority Job Slots increase waiting time because excess work is parked in the Backup Queue until running live jobs complete, and nonurgent Steps can instead be routed deliberately to the Batch Queue.

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