Quarkus Extension for Spring Scheduling API

While users are encouraged to use regular Quarkus scheduler, Quarkus provides a compatibility layer for Spring Scheduled in the form of the spring-scheduled extension.

This guide explains how a Quarkus application can leverage the well known Spring Scheduled annotation to configure and schedule tasks.

Prerequisites

To complete this guide, you need:

  • Roughly 15 minutes

  • An IDE

  • JDK 17+ installed with JAVA_HOME configured appropriately

  • Apache Maven 3.9.6

  • Optionally the Quarkus CLI if you want to use it

  • Optionally Mandrel or GraalVM installed and configured appropriately if you want to build a native executable (or Docker if you use a native container build)

  • Some familiarity with the Spring Web extension

Solution

We recommend that you follow the instructions in the next sections and create the application step by step. However, you can go right to the completed example.

Clone the Git repository: git clone https://github.com/quarkusio/quarkus-quickstarts.git, or download an archive.

The solution is located in the spring-scheduled-quickstart directory.

Creating the Maven project

First, we need a new project. Create a new project with the following command:

CLI
quarkus create app org.acme:spring-scheduler-quickstart \
    --extension='resteasy-reactive,spring-scheduled' \
    --no-code
cd spring-scheduler-quickstart

To create a Gradle project, add the --gradle or --gradle-kotlin-dsl option.

For more information about how to install and use the Quarkus CLI, see the Quarkus CLI guide.

Maven
mvn io.quarkus.platform:quarkus-maven-plugin:3.8.2:create \
    -DprojectGroupId=org.acme \
    -DprojectArtifactId=spring-scheduler-quickstart \
    -Dextensions='resteasy-reactive,spring-scheduled' \
    -DnoCode
cd spring-scheduler-quickstart

To create a Gradle project, add the -DbuildTool=gradle or -DbuildTool=gradle-kotlin-dsl option.

For Windows users:

  • If using cmd, (don’t use backward slash \ and put everything on the same line)

  • If using Powershell, wrap -D parameters in double quotes e.g. "-DprojectArtifactId=spring-scheduler-quickstart"

This command generates a Maven project with the spring-scheduled extension.

If you already have your Quarkus project configured, you can add the spring-scheduled extension to your project by running the following command in your project base directory:

CLI
quarkus extension add spring-scheduled
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='spring-scheduled'
Gradle
./gradlew addExtension --extensions='spring-scheduled'

This will add the following to your build file:

pom.xml
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.quarkus</groupId>
    <artifactId>quarkus-spring-scheduled</artifactId>
</dependency>
build.gradle
implementation("io.quarkus:quarkus-spring-scheduled")

Creating a scheduled job

In the org.acme.spring.scheduler package, create the CounterBean class, with the following content:

package org.acme.spring.scheduler;

import org.springframework.scheduling.annotation.Scheduled;

import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;
import jakarta.enterprise.context.ApplicationScoped;

@ApplicationScoped              (1)
public class CounterBean {

    private AtomicInteger counter = new AtomicInteger();

    public int get() {   (2)
        return counter.get();
    }

    @Scheduled(cron="*/5 * * * * ?")   (3)
    void cronJob() {
        counter.incrementAndGet();      (4)
        System.out.println("Cron expression hardcoded");
    }

    @Scheduled(cron = "{cron.expr}")   (5)
    void cronJobWithExpressionInConfig() {
        counter.incrementAndGet();
        System.out.println("Cron expression configured in application.properties");
    }

    @Scheduled(fixedRate = 1000)    (6)
    void jobAtFixedRate() {
        counter.incrementAndGet();
        System.out.println("Fixed Rate expression");
    }

    @Scheduled(fixedRateString = "${fixedRate.expr}")      (7)
    void jobAtFixedRateInConfig() {
        counter.incrementAndGet();
        System.out.println("Fixed Rate expression configured in application.properties");
    }
}
1 Declare the bean in the application scope. Spring only detects @Scheduled annotations in beans.
2 The get() method allows retrieving the current value.
3 Use the Spring @Scheduled annotation with a cron-like expression to instruct Quarkus to schedule this method run. In this example we’re scheduling a task to be executed at 10:15am every day.
4 The code is pretty straightforward. Every day at 10:15am, the counter is incremented.
5 Define a job with a cron-like expression cron.expr which is configurable in application.properties.
6 Define a method to be executed at a fixed interval of time. The period is expressed in milliseconds.
7 Define a job to be executed at a fixed interval of time fixedRate.expr which is configurable in application.properties.

Updating the application configuration file

Edit the application.properties file and add the cron.expr and the fixedRate.expr configuration:

# The syntax used by Spring for cron expressions is the same as which is used by regular Quarkus scheduler.
cron.expr=*/5 * * * * ?
fixedRate.expr=1000

Creating the resource and the test

Create the CountResource class with the following content:

package org.acme.spring.scheduler;

import jakarta.inject.Inject;
import jakarta.ws.rs.GET;
import jakarta.ws.rs.Path;
import jakarta.ws.rs.Produces;
import jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

@Path("/count")
public class CountResource {

    @Inject
    CounterBean counter;    (1)


    @GET
    @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
    public String hello() {
        return "count: " + counter.get();   (2)
    }
}
1 Inject the CounterBean
2 Send back the current counter value

We also need to update the tests. Edit the CountResourceTest class to match:

package org.acme.spring.scheduler;

import static io.restassured.RestAssured.given;
import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.containsString;

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;

import io.quarkus.test.junit.QuarkusTest;

@QuarkusTest
public class CountResourceTest {

    @Test
    public void testHelloEndpoint() {
        given()
                .when().get("/count")
                .then()
                .statusCode(200)
                .body(containsString("count"));  (1)
    }

}
1 Ensure that the response contains count

Package and run the application

Run the application with:

CLI
quarkus dev
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:dev
Gradle
./gradlew --console=plain quarkusDev

In another terminal, run curl localhost:8080/count to check the counter value. After a few seconds, re-run curl localhost:8080/count to verify the counter has been incremented.

Observe the console to verify that the following messages has been displayed: - Cron expression hardcoded - Cron expression configured in application.properties - Fixed Rate expression - Fixed Rate expression configured in application.properties These messages indicate that the executions of methods annotated with @Scheduled have been triggered.

As usual, the application can be packaged using:

CLI
quarkus build
Maven
./mvnw install
Gradle
./gradlew build

And executed using java -jar target/quarkus-app/quarkus-run.jar.

You can also generate the native executable with:

CLI
quarkus build --native
Maven
./mvnw install -Dnative
Gradle
./gradlew build -Dquarkus.package.type=native

Using Property Expressions

Quarkus supports the use of property expressions in the application.properties file so to externalize the configuration of the tasks you should store the properties in the application.properties file and use the fixedRateString, initialDelayString params respectively.

Note that this configuration is a build time configuration, the property expression will be resolved at build time.

Unsupported Spring Scheduled functionalities

Quarkus currently only supports a subset of the functionalities that Spring @Scheduled provides with more features being planned. Currently, the fixedDelay and fixedDelayString parameters are not supported, in other words, @Scheduled methods are always executed independently.

Important Technical Note

Please note that the Spring support in Quarkus does not start a Spring Application Context nor are any Spring infrastructure classes run. Spring classes and annotations are only used for reading metadata and / or are used as user code method return types or parameter types. What that means for end users, is that adding arbitrary Spring libraries will not have any effect. Moreover, Spring infrastructure classes (like org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanPostProcessor for example) will not be executed.

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