Honker

Durable queues, streams, pub/sub, and a cron scheduler — inside your SQLite file. Read the docs GitHub

honker adds Postgres-style NOTIFY/LISTEN semantics to SQLite, with a durable pub/sub, task queue, and event streams on the side, without client polling or a daemon/broker. Cross-process wake latency is ~0.7 ms p50 on an M-series laptop.

In its basic form it’s a plain SQLite loadable extension, so any language that can SELECT load_extension('honker_ext') gets the same queue, streams, and notifications on the same file. Bindings for Python, Node, Rust, Go, Ruby, Bun, and Elixir share one on-disk format.

SQLite is backing real work now — Bluesky’s PDS, Fly’s LiteFS, Turso, weekend projects that somehow ended up in production. Once real work flows through a SQLite-backed app, you need a queue. The usual answer is “add Redis + Celery.” That works, but introduces a second datastore with its own backup story, a dual-write problem between your business table and the queue, and the operational overhead of running a broker.

honker takes the approach that if SQLite is the primary datastore, the queue should live in the same file. That means INSERT INTO orders and queue.enqueue(...) commit in the same transaction. Rollback drops both. The queue is just rows in a table with a partial index.

Enqueue atomically with a business write, then consume. Same .db file, same on-disk format, seven languages.

Python
Node
Rust
Go
Ruby
Bun
Elixir
C++
SQL (extension)

import honker
db = honker.open("app.db")q = db.queue("emails")
# Enqueue in the same transaction as the business write.with db.transaction() as tx:    tx.execute("INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)", [42, 99])    q.enqueue({"to": "[email protected]", "order_id": 42}, tx=tx)
# Worker wakes on any commit to the db, no polling.async for job in q.claim("worker-1"):    await send_email(job.payload)    job.ack()

Or with Huey-style decorators:

@q.task(retries=3, timeout_s=30)def send_email(to, subject):    ...    return {"sent_at": time.time()}
r = send_email("[email protected]", "Hi")   # enqueues, returns TaskResultprint(r.get(timeout=10))                    # blocks until worker runs it

const { open } = require('@russellthehippo/honker-node');const db = open('app.db');const q = db.queue('emails');
// Enqueue in the same transaction as the business write.const tx = db.transaction();tx.execute("INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)", [42, 99]);q.enqueueTx(tx, { to: '[email protected]', order_id: 42 });tx.commit();
// Worker wakes on any commit to the db, no polling.const waker = q.claimWaker();while (true) {  const job = await waker.next('worker-1');  if (!job) break;  await sendEmail(job.payload);  job.ack();}

use honker::{Database, QueueOpts, EnqueueOpts};use serde_json::json;
let db = Database::open("app.db")?;let q = db.queue("emails", QueueOpts::default());
let tx = db.transaction()?;tx.execute("INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)",           rusqlite::params![42, 99])?;q.enqueue_tx(&tx,    &json!({"to": "[email protected]", "order_id": 42}),    EnqueueOpts::default())?;tx.commit()?;
if let Some(job) = q.claim_one("worker-1")? {    send_email(&job.payload)?;    job.ack()?;}

import honker "github.com/russellromney/honker-go"
db, _ := honker.Open("app.db", "./libhonker_ext.dylib")defer db.Close()
q := db.Queue("emails", honker.QueueOptions{})
tx, _ := db.Begin()tx.Exec("INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)", 42, 99)q.EnqueueTx(tx, map[string]any{    "to": "[email protected]", "order_id": 42,}, honker.EnqueueOptions{})tx.Commit()
if job, _ := q.ClaimOne("worker-1"); job != nil {    var p map[string]any    job.UnmarshalPayload(&p)    sendEmail(p)    job.Ack()}

require "honker"
db = Honker::Database.new("app.db", extension_path: "./libhonker_ext.dylib")q = db.queue("emails")
db.transaction do |tx|  tx.execute("INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)", [42, 99])  q.enqueue({to: "[email protected]", order_id: 42}, tx: tx)end
if (job = q.claim_one("worker-1"))  send_email(job.payload)  job.ackend

import { open } from "@russellthehippo/honker-bun";
const db = open("app.db", "./libhonker_ext.dylib");const q = db.queue("emails");
const tx = db.transaction();tx.execute("INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)", [42, 99]);q.enqueue({ to: "[email protected]", order_id: 42 }, { tx });tx.commit();
const job = q.claimOne("worker-1");if (job) {  await sendEmail(job.payload as { to: string });  job.ack();}

{:ok, db} = Honker.open("app.db", extension_path: "./libhonker_ext.dylib")q = Honker.queue(db, "emails")
Honker.transaction(db, fn tx ->  Honker.execute(tx, "INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)", [42, 99])  Honker.Queue.enqueue(q, %{to: "[email protected]", order_id: 42}, tx: tx)end)
case Honker.Queue.claim_one(q, "worker-1") do  {:ok, nil} -> :ok  {:ok, job} ->    send_email(job.payload)    Honker.Job.ack(db, job)end

#include "honker.hpp"
int main() {    honker::Database db{"app.db", "./libhonker_ext.dylib"};    auto q = db.queue("emails");
    {        honker::Transaction tx{db.raw()};        tx.execute("INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (?, ?)", {42, 99});        q.enqueue_tx(tx, R"({"to":"alice","order_id":42})");        tx.commit();    }
    auto job = q.claim_one("worker-1");    if (job) {        send_email(job->payload());        job->ack();    }}

.load ./libhonker_extSELECT honker_bootstrap();
BEGIN;INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (42, 99);SELECT honker_enqueue('emails', '{"to":"alice","order_id":42}',                      NULL, NULL, 0, 3, NULL);COMMIT;
SELECT honker_claim_batch('emails', 'worker-1', 32, 300);SELECT honker_ack_batch('[1,2,3]', 'worker-1');

honker polls SQLite’s PRAGMA data_version every millisecond. That’s a monotonic counter SQLite increments on every commit from any connection, journal mode, or process — a ~3 µs read for a precise wake signal. A background thread fans the tick out to every subscriber, which runs SELECT ... WHERE id > last_seen and yields new rows. One poller thread per database regardless of subscriber count.

Idle cost is that one lightweight SELECT per millisecond per database — no page-cache pressure, no writer-lock contention, no kernel file watcher in the mix. Listener count scales for free because the wake signal is one shared poll, not one query per listener.

The queue, stream, and pub/sub primitives are all INSERTs into tables managed by the extension. Calling queue.enqueue(payload, tx=tx) inside your business transaction means the job row is ACID with the INSERT INTO orders that preceded it. Rollback drops the job along with everything else.

pg_notify gives you fast cross-process triggers but no retry or visibility. Huey is the SQLite-backed Python task queue honker draws the most from. pg-boss and Oban are the Postgres-side gold standards. If you already run Postgres, use those.

Python
Node
Rust
Go
Ruby
Bun
Elixir
C++
SQLite extension

Terminal window

pip install honker

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npm install @russellthehippo/honker-node

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cargo add honker

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go get github.com/russellromney/honker-go

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gem install honker

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bun add @russellthehippo/honker-bun

mix.exs

{:honker, "~> 0.1"}

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git clone https://github.com/russellromney/honker-cpp.gitcd honker-cppzig build

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# Build from source — it's one cratecargo build --release -p honker-extension# → target/release/libhonker_ext.{dylib,so}

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Docs overview

Durable queues, streams, pub/sub, and a cron scheduler – inside your SQLite file

Honker