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Run Django Celery Workers

Celery is the most popular task queue for Django applications. This guide walks you through running Celery workers and the beat scheduler on Appliku.

Prerequisites​

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • A Django application with Celery configured
  • A message broker (Redis or RabbitMQ)
  • celery listed in your requirements.txt

Step 1: Provision a Message Broker​

Celery requires a message broker to coordinate tasks between your web process and worker processes.

Go to your application in the Appliku dashboard and navigate to the Databases section. Provision either:

  • Redis (recommended for most use cases)
  • RabbitMQ (better for complex routing and high-throughput scenarios)

After provisioning, Appliku will automatically add the connection URL as an environment variable.

Step 2: Set the Broker URL​

Add the CELERY_BROKER_URL environment variable in your application's Environment Variables tab. Set it to the connection URL of your provisioned broker:

# settings.py
import os

CELERY_BROKER_URL = os.environ.get("CELERY_BROKER_URL", "redis://localhost:6379/0")
tip

If you provisioned Redis through Appliku, the connection URL is available in the database details. Copy it and paste it as the value for CELERY_BROKER_URL.

Step 3: Add a Worker Process​

In your application's Processes tab, add a new process for the Celery worker:

  • Process name: worker
  • Command:
celery -A myproject worker --loglevel=info

Replace myproject with your Django project name (the directory containing celery.py).

Step 4: Add a Beat Process (Optional)​

If you use periodic tasks (e.g., with celery-beat or django-celery-beat), add another process:

  • Process name: beat
  • Command:
celery -A myproject beat --loglevel=info
note

Only run one beat process at a time. Running multiple beat instances will cause duplicate task execution.

Step 5: Deploy​

Save your process configuration and deploy your application. Appliku will start the worker and beat processes alongside your web process.

Verifying It Works​

Check the logs for your worker process in the Appliku dashboard or via SSH:

ssh app@<your-server-ip>
docker logs <app-worker-container>

You should see output indicating the worker has connected to the broker and is ready to process tasks.