Cloud Tasks | User manual

A queue sends HTTP tasks for one project, at the rate and with the retries you set. A task is one call: a method, a URL, headers, a body and an auth option. Apps add tasks with the project's API key; here you make queues, add tasks by hand or from a file, and look after the ones that failed.

Create a queue

Needs create

The top left of the Queues page: the project picker, Queues in the sidebar and the Create queue button — The Queues page.

1
Choose the project in the picker.
2
Click Queues under Cloud Tasks.
3
Click Create queue. The form Create queue opens, filled with the defaults.

The Name and Rate limits panels of the Create queue form — Name and rate limits.

4
Type the Queue name: Lower-case letters, digits and dashes, starting with a letter. It cannot be changed later.
5
Max dispatches per second: how many tasks may start each second, more than 0 and at most 500.
6
Max concurrent dispatches: how many may run at once, 1 to 5000.

The Retries panel of the Create queue form — Retries.

7
Max attempts: The first attempt counts. -1 is unlimited.
8
Max retry duration: Seconds, minutes or hours: 90s, 5m, 1h. 0s is unlimited. A task stops after its attempts or this time, whichever comes first, and is Failed.
9
Min backoff: the first wait before a retry, For example 0.1s or 5s.
10
Max backoff: the longest wait, For example 1h. It may not be less than the min backoff.
11
Max doublings: How many times the wait between retries doubles before it grows evenly.
12
Status codes not retried: Answers that will never succeed, such as 400, 404, 410. Others, timeouts and network errors are retried; Retry-After is honoured.

The Logs and priority and Dead letter panels, and the Create and Cancel buttons — Logs, priority and dead letter.

13
Logging: Failed attempts only, or Failed attempts and a sample of successful ones. Failed attempts are always kept.
14
Successful attempts kept (%): With the sample setting only.
15
Priority: Normal, or Low (held first near a free limit).
16
Dead-letter queue: None, or another queue of the project. Tasks that fail for good are copied there, once; they stay in Failed here too. Copies count against the daily quota.
17
Click Create. Cancel goes back and makes nothing.

What you see when it worked

The queue's page opens with the notice Created the queue …, and the queue is in the Queues list. To change it later, click Edit on its page (the update permission), change the settings and click Save: Saved …. Its name cannot change.

If it is refused

The form stays, with each field's message beside it, such as name is 1 to 63 lower-case letters, digits and dashes, starting with a letter or maxDispatchesPerSecond is more than 0 and at most 500. Fix the field and click Create again. A refusal about the whole queue, such as a name already taken or a project at its 100 queues, shows in red at the top of the form: scroll up to read it.

Add a task

Needs create

Start from: Queues, then the queue's name.

The toolbar of the queue page with the Create HTTP task button — The queue's toolbar.

1
On the queue's page, click Create HTTP task. The page Create a task opens.

The Task panel: Task name and Schedule time — The task's name and time.

2
Task name: Optional. Letters, digits, _ and -. Left empty, the queue names it. A name is refused while the queue remembers it.
3
Schedule time: Optional, in your own time zone. Left empty, it runs now. At most 30 days ahead.

The Target panel: URL, HTTP method, HTTP headers with Add a header, Body, and the Auth header group — The call the task makes.

4
URL: a public http:// or https:// address. Private, local and internal addresses, and the console itself, are refused.
5
HTTP method: POST, GET, HEAD, PUT, DELETE, PATCH or OPTIONS.
6
Add a header adds a row with a name and a value (Remove takes it out). Credentials do not go here: use Auth.
7
Body: Sent as it is, as text. None with GET or HEAD.
8
Auth: None, HMAC signature, Basic auth, Bearer token, OIDC token or OAuth token. For HMAC, Basic, Bearer and OAuth, choose a Secret of that kind; for OIDC, a Service account and an Audience (A URL at one of the service account's allowed origins. Leave empty for the URL without its query.). With none yet: Add one on the Secrets page.

The Deadline panel and the Create and Cancel buttons — The deadline, then Create.

9
Attempt deadline: How long one attempt may take, e.g. 30s or 3m. From 15s to 15m.
10
Click Create.

What you see when it worked

The task's page opens with the notice Created the task … and its state: Queued while it waits, Running, then Succeeded or Retrying (attempt …). A task in a paused queue waits until the queue is resumed.

The page of the new task order-2001 with the green notice Created the task order-2001. and the chip Running — A task just created.

If it is refused

A refusal about the whole task (a name taken, the daily quota) shows in red at the top of the form, out of view when you are at the Create button: scroll up to read it. A field's message shows beside its field.

A task named … is in this queue, or succeeded or was deleted within the last day: choose another name, or leave it empty.
A field's message beside it, such as The URL is a private, local or reserved address or scheduleTime is at most 30 days ahead.
A secret or service account that does not fit the URL (see Troubleshooting).
The project's daily quota of … tasks and job runs is used up: nothing was added (see Usage).

Add up to 50 tasks from a file

Needs create

Start from: the queue's page, then Create HTTP task. The panel is under the form.

The From a file panel: its explanation, Download a sample, the Tasks file chooser and Create tasks — The **From a file** panel, under the Create a task form.

1
Click Download a sample. It saves cloud-console-tasks-sample.json (Saved cloud-console-tasks-sample.json.). Open it in a text editor and change it: The sample's two tasks call https://example.com/ as soon as they are created: change the url (and the rest) before you create them.
2
At Tasks file, choose your file.
3
Click Create tasks. Every task is checked first: when one is wrong, none is made.

The file is JSON: { "tasks": [ ... ] }, up to 50 tasks, each with the fields of the form. Only url is required; method is POST when left out; scheduleTime is ISO 8601 time with Z or an offset, at most 30 days ahead. The sample, as it downloads:

{
  "tasks": [
    {
      "name": "sample-task-1",
      "method": "POST",
      "url": "https://example.com/",
      "headers": {
        "content-type": "application/json"
      },
      "body": "{\"hello\":\"world\"}",
      "auth": {
        "kind": "none"
      },
      "attemptDeadline": "3m"
    },
    {
      "method": "GET",
      "url": "https://example.com/",
      "auth": {
        "kind": "none"
      }
    }
  ]
}

What you see when it worked

The panel says Created 2 tasks with Go to the queue, and the chosen file is let go, so a second click cannot make its tasks twice. The tasks are in the queue's Tasks tab.

The From a file panel saying Created 2 tasks, with Go to the queue — Every task made.

The Tasks tab of the queue emails with the new tasks at the top, each Queued — The new tasks in the queue.

If some or all are refused

A mistake anywhere stops the whole file, and the message names the task by its place: tasks.0 is the first, so tasks.1.url is the second task's url. A name the queue still remembers refuses that one task only: Created 1 task; 1 could not be, with a table of the task and why. A file that is not JSON: … is not a JSON file. With no file chosen: Choose a file of tasks first.

The panel with a red message: url is required: an http:// or https:// URL, and the path tasks.1.url — A mistake in the second task: nothing made.

The panel saying Created 1 task; 1 could not be, with the refused task sample-task-1 and why — The same file again: one name is still remembered.

A file's tasks count together against the daily quota: when the day has no room for all of them, none is made. Each 10 tasks count as one change against your hourly change budget.

Find a task and see its attempts

Needs read

The Tasks tab of the queue orders: the filter box, the Filter button, Columns, the sortable column headings and the task list — The **Tasks** tab.

1
Open the queue and its Tasks tab.
2
Type part of the task's name or URL in Filter by name or URL.
3
Click Filter.
4
Click a column's heading to sort by it (Name, ETA, Create time, Method/URL, Retries, Executions); click again to turn the order round.
5
Columns chooses which columns show.
6
Click the task's name. Its page opens.

The page of task order-1001: the Task panel with its times, the Call panel with method, URL, auth, headers and body, and the Attempts panel — A task's page.

7
Task: its schedule time, how many attempts, the first and last attempt, the last response, the attempt deadline, when it was made and when it was done.
8
Call: the method, URL, auth, headers and body. Headers and body show while the task waits or runs; then Dropped once the task was done.
9
Attempts: each try, newest first: Time, Attempt, Result, Duration and Error. Inspect shows the status code, the error kind, the answer's content type and the first 1 KB of its body.

The Logs tab of the queue: the banner about success sampling with its button, and the task name filter — Another way: the queue's **Logs** tab.

10
Open the queue's Logs tab: every attempt of every task, newest first.
11
Type a task's name in the box (Task name).
12
Click Filter. Show all takes the filter off again.
13
While the queue keeps failed attempts only, a banner says Only failed attempts are logged. Turn on success sampling to keep a share of the successful ones too. Turn on success sampling (with the update permission) changes the queue's logging.

What you see when it worked

Each attempt with its result: an HTTP status such as 503 Service Unavailable, or an error kind when no answer came: Timeout, DNS error, Connection refused, Blocked URL or Auth failed.

A filtered or sorted list reads only the newest tasks, and says so: Showing matches among the newest … tasks. You may filter or sort 10 times an hour.
Failed attempts are always kept; successful ones as the queue's logging says. A task keeps its newest 10 attempts, and every attempt goes after 7 days.
An attempt never keeps the request's auth headers, secrets or body. One that sent a Basic, Bearer or OAuth credential keeps no answer body either: Response body not kept (sent with credentials).

Retry or delete failed tasks

Needs run (retry) delete

The Failed tab of the queue: Retry all, Delete all and Refresh, and the empty list saying No failed tasks. Failed tasks are kept for 7 days. — The **Failed** tab.

1
Open the queue and its Failed tab: the tasks that ran out of attempts or retry time.
2
Retry all sends every failed task again: the same name and logs, its attempts from 0, due now.
3
Delete all asks Delete every failed task? (Their logs stay until they are pruned.) and deletes them.

What you see when it worked

Retried failed tasks: … or Deleted failed tasks: …, with the count. For one task, use its row menu on the Failed tab (or the buttons on its page): Retry (Retrying …) or Delete (Deleted …).

A failed task stays in its queue 7 days: No failed tasks. Failed tasks are kept for 7 days.
Fix the cause first (read its attempts), or it fails again. Every retry counts against the daily quota.
For tasks still waiting, tick their rows on the Tasks tab and use Run task or Delete task in the toolbar.

Pause, resume or purge a queue

Needs pause delete (purge)

The Queues list with the menu of the paused queue emails open: Edit, Resume, Purge and Delete — A queue's row menu on **Queues**.

1
On Queues, click the three dots of the queue. The same actions are in the toolbar of the queue's page.
2
Pause (for a running queue) stops sending; Resume (for a paused one) starts it again. A paused queue still takes new tasks: they wait.
3
Purge asks Purge …?: Every queued task is deleted. Running tasks finish.

What you see when it worked

Paused …, Resumed … or Purged … tasks from …, and the queue's chip says Running or Paused.

Delete in the same menu asks Delete …?: The queue and its tasks are deleted. This cannot be undone. The default queue cannot be deleted. To hold every queue and job of a project for a deploy, use the maintenance switch instead.

Cloud Console user manual, from the console as it is on main. The pictures are of a local copy with a made-up project, shop, and a made-up admin. 22 Oct 2026.