Celery Task Architecture - GOV.UK Notify API

GOV.UK Notify uses Celery with Amazon SQS as the message broker for asynchronous task processing. The task architecture handles notification delivery, job processing, scheduled tasks, and callbacks.

Queue Architecture

Location: app/config.py:12

Queue Definitions

class QueueNames:
    PERIODIC = "periodic-tasks"              # Scheduled/cron tasks
    DATABASE = "database-tasks"              # DB writes from jobs
    SEND_SMS = "send-sms-tasks"              # SMS delivery
    SEND_EMAIL = "send-email-tasks"          # Email delivery
    SEND_LETTER = "send-letter-tasks"        # Letter delivery
    RESEARCH_MODE = "research-mode-tasks"    # Test mode sends
    REPORTING = "reporting-tasks"            # Analytics/billing
    JOBS = "job-tasks"                       # Job processing
    RETRY = "retry-tasks"                    # Failed task retries
    NOTIFY = "notify-internal-tasks"         # Internal operations
    CREATE_LETTERS_PDF = "create-letters-pdf-tasks"
    CALLBACKS = "service-callbacks"          # Service callbacks
    CALLBACKS_RETRY = "service-callbacks-retry"
    LETTERS = "letter-tasks"                 # Letter operations
    SES_CALLBACKS = "ses-callbacks"          # Email provider callbacks
    SMS_CALLBACKS = "sms-callbacks"          # SMS provider callbacks
    LETTER_CALLBACKS = "letter-callbacks"    # Letter provider callbacks
    ANTIVIRUS = "antivirus-tasks"            # External AV service
    SANITISE_LETTERS = "sanitise-letter-tasks"  # External sanitisation

Queue Configuration

CELERY = {
    "broker_url": "https://sqs.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com",
    "broker_transport": "sqs",
    "task_ignore_result": True,
    "broker_transport_options": {
        "region": "eu-west-1",
        "queue_name_prefix": NOTIFICATION_QUEUE_PREFIX,
        "predefined_queues": QueueNames.predefined_queues(),
    },
}

Core Tasks

Job Processing Tasks

Location: app/celery/tasks.py

process-job

@notify_celery.task(name="process-job")
def process_job(job_id, sender_id=None, shatter_batch_size=32):
    """
    Main task to process a bulk notification job.
    
    Flow:
    1. Fetch job and validate status
    2. Check service is active
    3. Verify sending limits not exceeded
    4. Read CSV from S3
    5. Batch rows and create shatter-job-rows tasks
    6. Mark job as finished
    """

Process:

Updates job status to in progress
Validates service is active
Checks daily sending limits
Reads recipient CSV from S3
Batches rows (default 32) and creates subtasks
Each batch sent to shatter-job-rows task
Marks job as finished

shatter-job-rows

@notify_celery.task(name="shatter-job-rows")
def shatter_job_rows(template_type: str, args_kwargs_seq: Sequence):
    """
    Takes a batch of job rows and creates individual notification tasks.
    
    Uses subdivision if SQS message size limit exceeded.
    """
    for task_args_kwargs in args_kwargs_seq:
        process_job_row(template_type, task_args_kwargs)

Features:

Handles SQS message size limits via recursive subdivision
Routes to appropriate save task based on notification type
Queue: JOBS

Notification Saving Tasks

Location: app/celery/tasks.py:275

save-sms

@notify_celery.task(
    bind=True, 
    name="save-sms", 
    max_retries=5, 
    default_retry_delay=300
)
def save_sms(self, service_id, notification_id, encoded_notification, sender_id=None):
    """
    Persists SMS notification to database and queues for delivery.
    """

Flow:

Decode signed notification data
Load service and template
Validate recipient format
Persist notification to database
Queue deliver_sms task to SEND_SMS

Error Handling:

Invalid phone numbers marked as validation-failed
SQLAlchemy errors trigger retry with exponential backoff
Max retries: 5, delay: 300s

save-email

@notify_celery.task(
    bind=True,
    name="save-email",
    max_retries=5,
    default_retry_delay=300
)
def save_email(self, service_id, notification_id, encoded_notification, sender_id=None):
    """
    Persists email notification and queues for delivery.
    """

Special Handling:

Adds email file attachment links to personalisation
Handles reply-to address configuration
Unsubscribe link generation if enabled

save-letter

@notify_celery.task(
    bind=True,
    name="save-letter",
    max_retries=5,
    default_retry_delay=300
)
def save_letter(self, service_id, notification_id, encoded_notification):
    """
    Persists letter notification and triggers PDF generation.
    """

Flow:

Parse postal address from personalisation
Determine postage (first/second class, international)
Persist notification
Queue get_pdf_for_templated_letter to CREATE_LETTERS_PDF

Provider Delivery Tasks

Location: app/celery/provider_tasks.py

deliver_sms

@notify_celery.task(
    bind=True,
    name="deliver_sms",
    max_retries=48,
    default_retry_delay=300
)
def deliver_sms(self, notification_id):
    """
    Sends SMS to provider (MMG or Firetext).
    
    Retries: 48 times (4 days)
    """

Error Handling:

SmsClientResponseException → retry
Max retries exceeded → mark as technical-failure
First retry: immediate (countdown=0)
Subsequent retries: 300s delay
Queue: RETRY for all retries

deliver_email

@notify_celery.task(
    bind=True,
    name="deliver_email",
    max_retries=48,
    default_retry_delay=300
)
def deliver_email(self, notification_id):
    """
    Sends email via AWS SES.
    """

Special Cases:

EmailClientNonRetryableException → immediate technical-failure (no retry)
AwsSesClientThrottlingSendRateException → retry with warning
Generic exceptions → retry

deliver_letter

@notify_celery.task(
    bind=True,
    name="deliver_letter",
    max_retries=55
)
def deliver_letter(self, notification_id):
    """
    Sends letter to DVLA print provider.
    """

Process:

Validate notification status is created
Fetch PDF from S3
Send to DVLA API with callback URL
Update status to sending

Error Types:

DvlaThrottlingException → retry with warning
DvlaRetryableException → retry
DvlaDuplicatePrintRequestException → mark sending (idempotent)
Other exceptions → technical-failure

Scheduled Tasks

Location: app/config.py:282 (beat_schedule)

High-Frequency Tasks (Every Minute)

"generate-sms-delivery-stats": {
    "task": "generate-sms-delivery-stats",
    "schedule": crontab(),  # Every minute
},
"switch-current-sms-provider-on-slow-delivery": {
    "task": "switch-current-sms-provider-on-slow-delivery",
    "schedule": crontab(),
},
"check-job-status": {
    "task": "check-job-status",
    "schedule": crontab(),
},

Periodic Tasks

"run-scheduled-jobs": {
    "task": "run-scheduled-jobs",
    "schedule": crontab(minute="0,15,30,45"),  # Every 15 mins
},
"tend-providers-back-to-middle": {
    "task": "tend-providers-back-to-middle",
    "schedule": crontab(minute="*/5"),  # Every 5 mins
},
"replay-created-notifications": {
    "task": "replay-created-notifications",
    "schedule": crontab(minute="0,15,30,45"),
},

Nightly Tasks

"timeout-sending-notifications": {
    "task": "timeout-sending-notifications",
    "schedule": crontab(hour=0, minute=5),
},
"create-nightly-billing": {
    "task": "create-nightly-billing",
    "schedule": crontab(hour=0, minute=15),
},
"create-nightly-notification-status": {
    "task": "create-nightly-notification-status",
    "schedule": crontab(hour=0, minute=30),
},
"delete-notifications-older-than-retention": {
    "task": "delete-notifications-older-than-retention",
    "schedule": crontab(hour=3, minute=0),
},

Letter Collation

"check-time-to-collate-letters": {
    "task": "check-time-to-collate-letters",
    "schedule": crontab(hour="16,17", minute=50),  # 4:50pm and 5:50pm UTC
    # Task checks if local time is 5:50pm BST before proceeding
},

Weekly/Monthly Tasks

"weekly-dwp-report": {
    "task": "weekly-dwp-report",
    "schedule": crontab(hour=9, minute=0, day_of_week="mon"),
},
"change-dvla-api-key": {
    "task": "change-dvla-api-key",
    "schedule": crontab(hour=9, minute=0, day_of_week="tue", day_of_month="1-7"),
    # First Tuesday of every month
},

Task Design Patterns

Retry Strategy

@notify_celery.task(bind=True, max_retries=48, default_retry_delay=300)
def my_task(self, notification_id):
    try:
        do_work(notification_id)
    except Exception as e:
        if self.request.retries == 0:
            self.retry(queue=QueueNames.RETRY, countdown=0)  # Immediate
        else:
            self.retry(queue=QueueNames.RETRY)  # 300s delay

Error Handling Hierarchy

Non-retryable → Immediate technical-failure
Retryable → Exponential backoff
Max retries → Technical-failure with logging

Idempotency

All tasks check for duplicate processing:

if not get_notification_by_id(notification_id):
    # Already processed, safe to skip
    return

Task Signing

Sensitive data encoded with signing module:

encoded = signing.encode({
    "template": str(template_id),
    "to": recipient,
    "personalisation": {...}
})

Performance Optimizations

Batching

Job rows batched (default 32) before task creation
Reduces SQS API calls
Subdivision if message too large

Queue Separation

Delivery tasks separated by channel (SMS/Email/Letter)
Prevents head-of-line blocking
Independent scaling per queue

Prefetch Multiplier

if os.getenv("CELERYD_PREFETCH_MULTIPLIER"):
    CELERY["worker_prefetch_multiplier"] = os.getenv("CELERYD_PREFETCH_MULTIPLIER")

Set to 1 for long-running tasks to prevent timeout issues.

Monitoring

Tasks emit StatsD metrics:

self.statsd_client.incr(f"clients.{provider}.success")
self.statsd_client.timing(f"clients.{provider}.request-time", elapsed)

Logging with structured context:

current_app.logger.info(
    "SMS notification %(notification_id)s created",
    extra={"notification_id": notification_id}
)

app/celery/tasks.py - Job and notification tasks
app/celery/provider_tasks.py - Provider delivery tasks
app/celery/scheduled_tasks.py - Scheduled/periodic tasks
app/celery/nightly_tasks.py - Nightly maintenance tasks
app/celery/reporting_tasks.py - Analytics tasks
app/config.py - Queue and schedule configuration

Documentation Index

​Queue Architecture

​Queue Definitions

​Queue Configuration

​Core Tasks

​Job Processing Tasks

​process-job

​shatter-job-rows

​Notification Saving Tasks

​save-sms

​save-email

​save-letter

​Provider Delivery Tasks

​deliver_sms

​deliver_email

​deliver_letter

​Scheduled Tasks

​High-Frequency Tasks (Every Minute)

​Periodic Tasks

​Nightly Tasks

​Letter Collation

​Weekly/Monthly Tasks

​Task Design Patterns

​Retry Strategy

​Error Handling Hierarchy

​Idempotency

​Task Signing

​Performance Optimizations

​Batching

​Queue Separation

​Prefetch Multiplier

​Monitoring

​Related Files