Serverless App Engine:Manage task templates

Use cases

SAE Job is designed for asynchronous, latency-tolerant workloads:

• Time-driven processing: Send coupons on the hour, update daily earnings, or refresh daily tag counts and crowd data.

• Batch data processing: Generate monthly statistical reports or run batch text message status updates where real-time performance is not required.

• Asynchronous decoupling: Refresh activity statuses, run offline queries asynchronously, or decouple task logic from your application.

• CI/CD pipelines: Release compute resources immediately after a continuous integration (CI) or continuous delivery (CD) task completes.

For a full comparison of SAE Job against other deployment options, see Scenarios.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure that you have:

• An activated SAE account

• An activated EventBridge service

If you are using a Resource Access Management (RAM) user, the Alibaba Cloud account holder must also:

1. Activate EventBridge.

2. Activate SAE Job and create the AliyunServiceRoleForEventBridgeSendToSAE service-linked role as prompted in the console.

3. Grant the AliyunEventBridgeReadOnlyAccess permission to the RAM user. See Grant permissions to a RAM user.

How it works

1. Create a task template that defines how a task runs (deployment method, instance type, schedule, and so on).

2. Trigger tasks either automatically via a cron schedule or on demand via an HTTP/HTTPS request. Each trigger creates a new task from the template.

3. SAE provisions a new instance to run each task and releases the instance when the task finishes.

Create a task template

1. On the SAE Task Templates page, select a region and a namespace in the top navigation bar, and then click Create Task Template.

2. On the Basic Information page, configure the following parameters and click Next.

   • Deploy by Image: Click Set Image and choose an image source: For details, see Deploy an application using an image.

     • Demo Image: A prebuilt sample image.

     • My Alibaba Cloud Images: Images in an Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR) instance under the same account.

     • Private Images from Other Alibaba Cloud Accounts: Images in an ACR instance under a different account.

     • Custom Image: Images not hosted in ACR.

     • Reference Image from Other Task Template: Reuse the image from an existing task template.

   • Deploy by Code Package: Click Set Code Package Deployment. Select a Technology Stack Language and Code Package Type, upload your code package, and specify the runtime environment. See Deploy an application using a code package.

   • Shell Script: Click Configure Shell Script and write your task execution script. Refer to the example script on the page.

   Parameter	Description
   Task Template Name	Enter a name for the task template.
   Namespace Type	Select System-created or Select Existing Namespace.
   Task Deployment Method	See Deployment methods below.
   Instance Type	See Instance types below.
   Single Instance Specification	Specify the CPU and memory for each instance.
   Concurrent Instances	Specify the number of instances to run at the same time.

   Instance type	Performance	Preemption risk	Best for
   Default	Stable	None	High real-time performance and stability requirements
   BestEffort	May fluctuate significantly	Can be preempted and evicted	No strict real-time or stability requirements
   BestEffort Preferred	Prioritizes BestEffort; falls back to Default if preempted	Auto-fallback prevents task interruption	Cost savings with resilience

3. On the Task Settings page, configure the following parameters and click Next. Task type Additional settings (expand More Settings)

   • Periodic Task: Runs automatically on a cron schedule.

     In the Cron Expression field, enter a cron expression or click Use Generation Tool to build one interactively. The cron expression uses this format:

     # ┌─────────── minute (0–59)
     # │ ┌─────────── hour (0–23)
     # │ │ ┌─────────── day of the month (1–31)
     # │ │ │ ┌─────────── month (1–12)
     # │ │ │ │ ┌─────────── day of the week (0–6, Sunday to Saturday)
     # │ │ │ │ │
     # * * * * *

     Common cron operators:

     Operator	Description	Example
     *	Any value	0 * * * * — runs every hour
     ,	List separator	0 9,17 * * * — runs at 9 AM and 5 PM
     -	Range	0 9 * * 1-5 — runs at 9 AM, Monday through Friday
     /	Step	*/15 * * * * — runs every 15 minutes

   • One-time Task (Triggered by HTTP/HTTPS): Runs when it receives an HTTP or HTTPS request.

     Parameter	Description
     Request Type	Select the protocol to accept: HTTP, HTTPS, or HTTP&HTTPS.
     Request Method	Select one or more HTTP methods to accept: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, or HEAD.
     Security Configuration	Controls which requests trigger a task. Options: No Configuration Required (all requests are accepted), Secure Domain Name (requests from a specific domain only), or IP CIDR block (requests from a specific IP address or CIDR range only).

   Parameter	Default	Range	Description
   Concurrency Policy	Allow	—	Controls what happens when a new task is triggered before the previous one finishes. Allow (default): run concurrently; scheduled tasks continuously create new tasks. Forbid: a new task is not created if the previous one has not finished. Replace: stop the previous task and start the new one.
   Timeout	3600 s	0–604800 s	Maximum duration for a task. The system tries to stop the task if it exceeds this limit.
   Retries	3	0–10	Number of retry attempts after a task fails.
   Enable Task Sharding	Off	—	Distribute a task across multiple clients for parallel execution. Used for big data processing. Toggle the switch and click Edit Task Shard Name to configure shard names.

4. (Optional) On the Advanced Settings page, configure additional runtime options.

   • Startup Command

     Override the default CMD or ENTRYPOINT defined in the image. See Set a startup command.

   • Runtime Environment and Lifecycle Management

     • Set environment variables to change runtime configuration without rebuilding the image.

     • Set host bindings to configure hostname-to-IP mappings.

     • Inject configuration information to mount configuration files at runtime.

     • Configure application lifecycle management to run commands after startup or before shutdown, and to implement graceful shutdown.

   • Data Persistence

     Store application data in NAS, OSS, or a database to prevent data loss when the instance is released.

     Important

     Note: NAS, OSS, and database services incur additional fees.

   • Logs

     Send logs to SLS for centralized management and analysis.

     Important

     Note: SLS incurs additional fees.

5. Click Create and wait for the task template to be created.

To view the template, go to the SAE Task Templates page, select a region and a namespace, and click the template name to open its details page.

Run and stop tasks

Manage task records

1. Go to the task template details page.

2. In the left navigation pane, click Task Records.

On the Task Records page:

• To view instance-level details, click a task ID to open the Task Record Details page.

• To delete a task record, click Delete in the Actions column and follow the on-screen instructions.

View task events

1. Go to the task template details page.

2. In the left navigation pane, click Event Information.

Use the search box to filter events by Source Name, Event Reason, Source Type, or Event Level.

Edit or delete a task template

1. Go to the task template details page.

2. In the upper-right corner, click Edit Task Template or Delete Task Template and follow the on-screen instructions.

Roll back to a previous version

If a template update causes issues, roll back to an earlier version:

1. Go to the task template details page.

2. Click Roll Back to Previous Version in the upper-right corner.

3. On the Roll Back to Previous Version page, select the target version and click OK.