Shipped · Databases

What riverqueue/river shipped

The public repository of Riverqueue · github.com/riverqueue/river

Written by FoxPlug from public releases; not affiliated with Riverqueue. An automatic summary of the public release, pull request and commit data of github.com/riverqueue/river. Riverqueue did not write it and does not use or endorse FoxPlug. Every line links to the public change it describes.

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Week of September 21, 2026

What shipped

Fixed a race condition where cancellations arriving between job claim and executor registration would be dropped, allowing jobs to run with uncancelled contexts. Pull request #1397
SQLite now writes cancellation notifications to the outbox when cancelling running jobs, ensuring workers receive cancellation signals. Pull request #1398
Fixed unique-by-args job deduplication to correctly handle JSON keys containing dots and other special characters. Pull request #1387
Fixed UniqueOpts.ByPeriod to bucket scheduled jobs by their run time rather than insertion time, preventing duplicate jobs in the same period. Pull request #1377
SQLite job cleaner now respects keep-forever retention settings (-1) and no longer deletes jobs configured to be kept indefinitely. Pull request #1389
Fixed stuck job detection to log the worker-level timeout value instead of the client-level timeout when reporting jobs appear stuck. Pull request #1394
Job rescue now guards against stale snapshots by verifying jobs remain in running state before applying rescue updates. Pull request #1373
Improved job list query performance by restoring proper index usage when filtering finalized jobs. Pull request #1374
Added LeaderElectionDisabled configuration option to prevent clients from participating in leader election and running maintenance services. Pull request #1382
SQLite river_notification now uses per-topic subscription cursors to avoid replaying old notifications after resubscription. Pull request #1381

Why it matters

This week addresses critical issues with job cancellation, unique job deduplication, and retention policies that could silently cause incorrect behavior. The fixes span both PostgreSQL and SQLite, with several addressing race conditions and edge cases that affect production reliability.

Changelog entry

SQLite JobCancel now writes control notifications to the outbox in the same transaction as job updates to ensure workers receive cancellation signals Pull request #1398
Fixed race condition where cancellations arriving between job claim and executor registration would be dropped Pull request #1397
Stuck job detection now logs the worker-level timeout value instead of the client-level timeout Pull request #1394
UniqueOpts.ByArgs now correctly handles JSON keys containing dots and other special characters Pull request #1387
SQLite job cleaner now respects keep-forever retention settings (-1) for finalized states Pull request #1389
Added LeaderElectionDisabled configuration option to prevent leader election participation and maintenance service execution Pull request #1382
UniqueOpts.ByPeriod now buckets scheduled jobs by their run time instead of insertion time Pull request #1377
Job rescue now verifies jobs remain in running state before applying updates to guard against stale snapshots Pull request #1373
Improved job list query performance by restoring proper index usage when filtering finalized jobs Pull request #1374

Example posts FoxPlug drafted from these changes. Not written or posted by the project.

Post for X

River update: fixed cancellation race conditions, unique-by-args with special characters, scheduled job deduplication, keep-forever retention on SQLite, and stuck job logging accuracy.

Post for LinkedIn

New River updates improve reliability across job cancellation, deduplication, and retention. Fixed a race condition where cancellations could be dropped before workers were notified, corrected unique-by-args to handle special JSON key characters, and resolved scheduled job bucketing to prevent duplicates. Also improved SQLite's keep-forever retention handling, stuck job timeout reporting, and job list query performance.