Message Queue
A buffer that decouples producers and consumers so bursts of work are processed reliably without dropping events.
A message queue buffers work between producers and consumers, letting them run at different speeds. It smooths spikes and prevents dropped events.
Businesses use queues for order processing, webhooks, email sends, and data syncs. Producers publish messages; consumers process at a steady rate.
Queues fit into event-driven architectures as the backbone. They add reliability through retries and acknowledgments, and they simplify scaling by adding consumers when load increases.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I use a queue?
When producers outpace consumers, you need retries, or you want to decouple systems. Webhooks, ETL, and notifications are common fits.
How do I avoid message loss?
Use durable queues, acknowledgments, and dead letter queues. Replicate data and monitor for unacked messages.
What about ordering?
Use partitions/keys to preserve order per entity. Global ordering is rare; design for per-key ordering instead.
How do retries work with queues?
On failure, messages can be retried with backoff. Too many failures go to a DLQ for inspection.
What metrics should I monitor?
Queue depth, consumer lag, processing latency, error rates, and DLQ volume. Alert on backlog growth.
How do I scale consumers?
Add more consumers for more throughput. Ensure downstream systems can handle the increased load.
Should messages be large or small?
Keep them small—IDs and necessary payloads. Store large data elsewhere and reference it.
How do I handle at-least-once delivery?
Make consumers idempotent. Deduplicate using message IDs and avoid side effects without checks.
Are queues good for synchronous workflows?
They add latency and complexity; better for async tasks. For synchronous needs, use direct calls with timeouts.
Agentic AI
An AI approach where models autonomously plan next steps, choose tools, and iterate toward an objective within guardrails.
Agentic Workflow
A sequence where an AI agent plans, executes tool calls, evaluates results, and loops until success criteria are met.
Agent Handoff
A pattern where one AI agent passes context and state to another specialized agent to keep multi-step automation modular.
Ship glossary-backed automations
Bring your terms into GrowthAX delivery—map them to owners, SLAs, and instrumentation so your automations launch with shared language.
Plan Your First 90 Days