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UKBatch UKBatch

Introduction

UKBatch is a lightweight, pluggable batch/job orchestration library for .NET 8 and .NET 10 microservices. It runs in two shapes from the same NuGet packages and the same job code:

  • Embedded mode — reference the library inside one ASP.NET Core app. The runtime, REST API, and dashboard all live in that process. Best for small to mid-size services.
  • Server + workers — run the standalone UKBatch.Server (a Docker app) as the orchestrator and dashboard; your microservices join as workers over a cross-service transport. Best for larger distributed systems.

You write a job once and decide later where state lives (in-memory or a database) and how services talk (in-process, HTTP, or RabbitMQ) — the job code does not change.

This guide walks the common path. Each section links to a runnable sample on GitHub rather than repeating it.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • .NET 8 or .NET 10 SDK. The packages target both net8.0 and net10.0, so a plain .NET 8 SDK project works; the build for your target framework is selected automatically.
  • Docker (optional) — only for the EF Core PostgreSQL path and the server + workers Compose stack.

Your first job

Section titled “Your first job”

A job is a class implementing IJob. Register it by name and trigger it over REST or from IJobRunner.

using UKBatch.AspNetCore;


var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);


builder.AddUKBatchAspNetCore(b =>
{
    b.AddJob<HelloJob>().Named(nameof(HelloJob));
});


var app = builder.Build();


// Trigger from a request handler. IJobRunner is resolved from DI.
app.MapPost("/trigger/hello",
    async (IJobRunner runner, CancellationToken ct) =>
    {
        var execution = await runner.TriggerAsync(nameof(HelloJob), JobParameters.Empty, triggeredBy: null, ct);
        return Results.Ok(new { execution.ExecutionId });
    });


app.Run();


public sealed class HelloJob : IJob
{
    public Task ExecuteAsync(JobContext ctx, CancellationToken ct)
    {
        ctx.Logger.LogInformation("Hello from {Job}", nameof(HelloJob));
        return Task.CompletedTask;
    }
}

AddUKBatchAspNetCore applies the in-memory store and the in-process transport by default — nothing else is required to run. (Outside ASP.NET Core, register the runtime with services.AddUKBatch(b => ...).)

Mounting the REST API (next: add the dashboard) gives you POST /api/jobs/{name}/trigger and a live SignalR hub instead of hand-rolling endpoints.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”