Cancel running functions

Stop the execution of a running function when a specific event is received using cancelOn.

inngest.createFunction(
  {
    id: "sync-contacts",
    cancelOn: [{ event: "app/user.deleted", match: "data.userId" }],
  }
  // ...
);

Using cancelOn is very useful for handling scenarios where a long-running function should be terminated early due to changes elsewhere in your system.

The API for this is similar to the step.waitForEvent() tool, allowing you to specify the incoming event and different methods for matching pieces of data within.

How to use cancelOn

The most common use case for cancellation is to cancel a function's execution if a specific field in the incoming event matches the same field in the triggering event. For example, you might want to cancel a sync event for a user if that user is deleted. For this, you need to specify a match expression. Let's look at an example function and two events.

This function specifies it will cancelOn the "app/user.deleted" event only when it and the original "app/user.created" event have the same data.userId value:

inngest.createFunction(
  {
    id: "sync-contacts",
    cancelOn: [{ event: "app/user.deleted", match: "data.userId" }],
  },
  { event: "app/user.created" },
  // ...
);

For the given function, this is an example of of an event that would trigger the function:

{
  "name": "app/user.created",
  "data": {
    "userId": "123",
    "name": "John Doe"
  }
}

And this is an example of an event that would cancel the function as it and the original event have the same data.userId value of "123":

{
  "name": "app/user.deleted",
  "data": {
    "userId": "123"
  }
}

Match expressions can be simple equalities or be more complex. Read our guide to writing expressions for more info.

Functions are cancelled between steps, meaning that if there is a step.run currently executing, it will finish before the function is cancelled.

Inngest does this to ensure that steps are treated like atomic operations and each step either completes or does not run at all.

Configuration

  • Name
    cancelOn
    Type
    array of objects
    Required
    optional
    Description

    Define events that can be used to cancel a running or sleeping function (reference)

    Properties
    • Name
      event
      Type
      string
      Required
      required
      Description

      The event name which will be used to cancel

    • Name
      match
      Type
      string
      Required
      optional
      Description

      The property to match the event trigger and the cancelling event, using dot-notation, for example, data.userId. Read our guide to writing expressions for more info.

    • Name
      if
      Type
      string
      Required
      optional
      Description

      An expression on which to conditionally match the original event trigger (event) and the wait event (async). Cannot be combined with match.

      Expressions are defined using the Common Expression Language (CEL) with the events accessible using dot-notation. Read our guide to writing expressions for more info. Examples:

      • event.data.userId == async.data.userId && async.data.billing_plan == 'pro'
    • Name
      timeout
      Type
      string
      Required
      optional
      Description

      The amount of time to wait to receive the cancelling event. A time string compatible with the ms package, e.g. "30m", "3 hours", or "2.5d"

Examples

With a timeout window

Cancel a function's execution if a matching event is received within a given amount of time from the function being triggered.

inngest.createFunction(
  {
    id: "sync-contacts",
    cancelOn: [{ event: "app/user.deleted", match: "data.userId", timeout: "1h" }],
  }
  // ...
);

This is useful when you want to limit the time window for cancellation, ensuring that the function will continue to execute if no matching event is received within the specified time frame.