Background tasks

Background tasks are Android-only, durable requests declared in manifest.backgroundTasks. The current addon host is implemented for Android mobile and TV; iOS and web addon runtimes are not yet public implementations.

{
  "backgroundTasks": [
    {
      "id": "daily-refresh",
      "action": "refresh",
      "intervalMinutes": 1440,
      "flexMinutes": 360,
      "runOnInstall": true,
      "constraints": {
        "network": "connected",
        "requiresBatteryNotLow": true
      }
    }
  ]
}

Scheduling is inexact. The operating system may delay work because of battery, network, idle, storage, or vendor policies. Correctness must never depend on an exact execution time.

Cooperative continuation

Process work in bounded, idempotent batches. Save a checkpoint before asking the host to continue later:

if (api.runtime.shouldYield()) {
  await saveCheckpoint();
  api.runtime.requestContinuation();
  return;
}

An operating system can terminate a process without a final callback. A task must be able to replay its last incomplete batch safely.

Check api.runtime.capabilities.backgroundTasks before presenting platform-specific behavior and use api.runtime.reason only to adapt presentation, not correctness. See the complete runtime capability matrix.

Cooperative continuation​

Cooperative continuation