Serve

The serve() API handler is used to serve your application's functions via HTTP. This handler enables Inngest to remotely and securely read your functions' configuration and invoke your function code. This enables you to host your function code on any platform.

import { serve } from "inngest/next"; // or your preferred framework
import { inngest } from "./client";
import {
  importProductImages,
  sendSignupEmail,
  summarizeText,
} from "./functions";

serve({
  client: inngest,
  functions: [sendSignupEmail, summarizeText, importProductImages],
});

serve handlers are imported from convenient framework-specific packages like "inngest/next", "inngest/express", or "inngest/lambda". Click here for a full list of officially supported frameworks. For any framework that is not support, you can create a custom handler.

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serve(options)

• client (Inngest client): An Inngest client (reference).

• functions (InngestFunctions[]): An array of Inngest functions defined using inngest.createFunction() (reference).

• serveOrigin (string): The domain host of your application, including protocol, e.g. https://myapp.com. The SDK attempts to infer this via HTTP headers at runtime, but this may be required when using platforms like AWS Lambda or when using a reverse proxy. See also INNGEST_SERVE_ORIGIN.

• servePath (string): The path where your serve handler is hosted. The SDK attempts to infer this via HTTP headers at runtime. We recommend /api/inngest. See also INNGEST_SERVE_PATH.

• streaming (`true | false`): Enables streaming responses back to Inngest which can enable maximum serverless function timeouts. See reference for more information on the configuration. See also INNGEST_STREAMING.

Callout: Options like signingKey, signingKeyFallback, logger, baseUrl, and fetch are configured on the Inngest client, not on serve(). We always recommend setting the INNGEST_SIGNING_KEY environment variable over using the signingKey option directly. As with any secret, it's not a good practice to hard-code the signing key in your codebase.

How the serve API handler works

The API works by exposing a single endpoint at /api/inngest which handles different actions utilizing HTTP request methods:

• GET: Return function metadata and render a landing page in development only.
• POST: Invoke functions with the request body as incoming function state.
• PUT: Trigger the SDK to register all functions with Inngest using the signing key.