Redis Queue for WordPress

NOTE: This is experimental, you might not need it

Robust Redis-backed background job processing for WordPress. Provides prioritized, delayed, and retryable jobs with an admin UI, REST API, token-based auth (scopes + rate limiting), and extensibility for custom job types.

A production-ready queue system for WordPress, following best practices and patterns.

Feature Highlights

Core:

• Priority + delayed + retryable jobs
• Redis (phpredis or Predis) abstraction
• Memory/timeouts and job metadata persistence

Built‑in Jobs:

• Email delivery (single/bulk)
• Image processing (thumbnails, optimization)
• Generic API / webhook style jobs

Interfaces:

• Admin dashboard (stats, browser, test tools, purge, debug)
• REST API (create jobs, trigger worker, health, stats)

Security & Control:

• Capability or API token auth
• Token scopes (worker, full)
• Per-token rate limiting
• Structured request logging with rotation

Extensibility:

• Simple Abstract_Base_Job subclassing
• Filters for dynamic job instantiation

TL;DR: see docs/README.md for overview, docs/usage.md for operations, and docs/extending-jobs.md for custom jobs.

WordPress Tasks That can Benefit from Redis Queues

High-Impact Use Cases

1.1 Email Operations

• Bulk email sending (newsletters, notifications)
• Transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets)
• Email campaign processing
• Benefits: Prevents timeouts, improves user experience, handles SMTP failures gracefully

1.2 Image Processing

• Thumbnail generation for multiple sizes
• Image optimization (compression, format conversion)
• Watermark application
• Benefits: Reduces page load times, prevents memory exhaustion

1.3 Data Import/Export

• CSV/XML imports (products, users, posts)
• Database migrations
• Content synchronization between sites
• Benefits: Handles large datasets without timeout issues

1.4 Content Processing

• Search index updates (Elasticsearch, Algolia)
• Cache warming after content updates
• Content analysis (SEO scoring, readability)
• Benefits: Keeps content fresh without blocking user interactions

1.5 Third-Party API Integrations

• Social media posting (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• CRM synchronization (Salesforce, HubSpot)
• Analytics data collection (Google Analytics, custom tracking)
• Benefits: Handles API rate limits and failures gracefully

1.6 E-commerce Operations

• Order processing workflows
• Inventory synchronization
• Payment verification processes
• Benefits: Ensures order integrity and improves checkout experience

1.7 Content Publishing

• Scheduled post publishing
• Content distribution to multiple platforms
• SEO metadata generation
• Benefits: Reliable scheduling and cross-platform consistency

Medium-Impact Use Cases

1.8 User Management

• User registration workflows
• Profile data enrichment
• Permission updates across systems

1.9 Backup Operations

• Database backups
• File system backups
• Remote backup uploads

1.10 Analytics & Reporting

• Report generation
• Data aggregation
• Performance metrics calculation

Installation

Prerequisites

1. WordPress: Version 6.7 or higher
2. PHP: Version 8.3 or higher
3. Redis Server: Running Redis instance
4. Redis PHP Extension OR Predis Library: One of these for Redis connectivity

Redis Setup

Option 1: Install Redis PHP Extension

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install php-redis

# macOS with Homebrew
brew install php-redis

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install php-redis

Option 2: Install Predis via Composer

# In your WordPress root or plugin directory
composer require predis/predis

Plugin Installation

• Quick Install

  • Download redis-queue.zip
  • Upload via Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin
  • Activate the plugin.

• Composer Install

  composer require soderlind/redis-queue

• Updates

  • Plugin updates are handled automatically via GitHub. No need to manually download and install updates.

Configuration

Redis Settings

Navigate to Redis Queue > Settings in your WordPress admin to configure:

• Redis Host: Your Redis server hostname (default: 127.0.0.1)
• Redis Port: Redis server port (default: 6379)
• Redis Database: Database number 0-15 (default: 0)
• Redis Password: Authentication password (if required)
• Worker Timeout: Maximum job execution time (default: 30 seconds)
• Max Retries: Failed job retry attempts (default: 3)
• Retry Delay: Base delay between retries (default: 60 seconds)
• Batch Size: Jobs per worker execution (default: 10)

Environment Variables

You can also configure via environment variables or wp-config.php:

// wp-config.php
define( 'REDIS_QUEUE_HOST', '127.0.0.1' );
define( 'REDIS_QUEUE_PORT', 6379 );
define( 'REDIS_QUEUE_PASSWORD', 'your-password' );
define( 'REDIS_QUEUE_DATABASE', 0 );

Usage

1. Admin Interface

Dashboard

• View real-time queue statistics
• Monitor system health
• Trigger workers manually
• View job processing results

Job Management

• Browse all jobs with filtering
• View detailed job information
• Cancel queued or failed jobs
• Monitor job status changes

Test Interface

Create test jobs to verify functionality:

Email Job Example:

Type: Single Email
To: admin@example.com
Subject: Test Email
Message: Testing Redis queue system

Image Processing Example:

Operation: Generate Thumbnails
Attachment ID: 123
Sizes: thumbnail, medium, large

API Sync Example:

Operation: Webhook
URL: https://httpbin.org/post
Data: {"test": "message"}

Quick Start

1. Install a Redis server (or use existing) and ensure the phpredis extension or Predis library is available.
2. Clone into wp-content/plugins/ and activate.
3. Configure Redis + queue settings under: Redis Queue → Settings.
4. Create a test job via the admin Test interface or REST API.
5. Run workers manually (admin button) or on a schedule (cron / wp-cli / external runner).

git clone https://github.com/soderlind/redis-queue.git wp-content/plugins/redis-queue

Optionally add Predis:

composer require predis/predis

Define environment constants (optional) in wp-config.php:

define( 'REDIS_QUEUE_PORT', 6379 );
define( 'REDIS_QUEUE_DATABASE', 0 );

Then enqueue a job programmatically:

use Soderlind\RedisQueue\Jobs\Email_Job;

$job = new Email_Job([
  'email_type' => 'single',
  'to' => 'admin@example.com',
  'subject' => 'Hello',
  'message' => 'Testing queue'
]);
redis_queue()->queue_manager->enqueue( $job );

Process jobs:

redis_queue_process_jobs(); // helper or via admin UI

See Usage & REST docs for deeper examples.

Documentation

Topic	Location
Documentation index	docs/README.md
Usage & operations	docs/usage.md
REST API (auth, scopes, rate limits)	docs/worker-rest-api.md
Creating custom jobs	docs/extending-jobs.md
Scaling strategies	docs/scaling.md
Maintenance & operations	docs/maintenance.md
This overview	README.md

When to Use

Use this plugin to offload expensive or slow tasks: emails, media transformations, API calls, data synchronization, indexing, cache warming, and other background workloads that should not block page loads.

Architecture Snapshot

• WordPress plugin bootstrap registers queue manager + job processor
• Redis stores queue + delayed sets; MySQL stores durable job records
• Synchronous worker invoked via admin, REST, or scheduled execution
• Job lifecycle: queued → (delayed ready) → processing → success/failure (with retry window)
• Filters allow custom job class instantiation by type

Security Model

1. Default capability check (manage_options).
2. Optional API token (bearer header) with: scope, rate limiting, request logging.
3. Filters to customize allowed routes per scope.

Full details: see the REST API documentation.

Extending

Implement a subclass of Abstract_Base_Job, override get_job_type() + execute(), optionally should_retry() and handle_failure(). Register dynamically with the redis_queue_create_job filter. Full guide: Extending Jobs.

Scheduling Workers

Examples:

# Cron (every minute)
* * * * * wp eval "redis_queue()->process_jobs();"

For higher throughput run multiple workers targeting distinct queues.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.7+
• PHP 8.3+
• Redis server
• phpredis extension OR Composer + Predis

Contributing

Contributions welcome. Please fork, branch, commit with clear messages, and open a PR. Add tests or reproducible steps for behavior changes.

License

GPL v2 or later. See LICENSE.

Author

Made with ❤️ by Per Søderlind

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For detailed usage, advanced features, troubleshooting, and performance tuning visit the Usage guide. Additional topics: Scaling, Maintenance.