Dispatching jobs

5 min read

A job is a class that knows how to run a unit of work later.

php artisan make:job SendWelcomeEmail

class SendWelcomeEmail implements ShouldQueue
{
    use Queueable;

    public function __construct(public User $user) {}

    public function handle(): void
    {
        Mail::to($this->user)->send(new WelcomeMail($this->user));
    }
}

Dispatch from anywhere:

SendWelcomeEmail::dispatch($user);
SendWelcomeEmail::dispatch($user)->onQueue('emails');
SendWelcomeEmail::dispatch($user)->delay(now()->addMinutes(5));

The ShouldQueue interface is the magic switch — Laravel serializes the job, drops it on the configured queue driver (database, redis, sqs, etc.), and the worker picks it up:

php artisan queue:work

Idempotency

A worker can crash mid-job. Design handle() so re-running is safe (use firstOrCreate, idempotent API calls, etc.). Set public int $tries = 3; for automatic retries with backoff.