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Background AI Work

Some AI work takes minutes rather than seconds: generating a video, or a long check that a custom app runs over a set of documents. Rather than hold a person's browser open, the platform can run that work in the background and let the screen collect the answer when it is ready. That depends on one task being switched on, and on the AI run log.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Automation:

  • Tasks — the Background Jobs task, the worker that runs queued work

Architect Panel → Data:

  • Background Jobs — every queued job, its status and how it ended

Architect Panel → Activity:

  • AI Usage — each background call's run, marked with its background job

What runs in the background

  • Video generation. A video takes from seconds to several minutes at Google, and something has to keep asking for it and then save it.
  • AI calls a custom app queues. An app's own feature can hand an AI call to the worker and be told when it has finished.
  • Calls finished after the page has its answer. A feature can also start a call, answer the browser straight away, and finish the call in the same server process. That kind needs no worker.

No standard platform screen queues AI calls of its own today; the sign-up wizard, AI Builder, App Code and Report Builder assistant all answer while the person waits.

Switching the worker on

  1. Open Tasks and find Background Jobs. It ships disabled.
  2. Switch it on. It runs every minute, picking up queued work within a tick or two.
  3. Check the task engine itself runs on its schedule: the Tasks screen's Overview shows when it last ran.
  4. Make sure Log every call is on in AI Settings → The run log. The run log is how a background answer comes back: with logging off, a background AI call finishes with nothing to hand back, and without the run log installed at all it refuses to queue.

How a person sees progress

The screen that started the work asks for its status every few seconds. A job is queued, running, ready, failed or cancelled, and can carry a short message. When it is ready, the screen collects the answer. A person can only ever see their own jobs; anyone else's answers exactly as if it did not exist.

A provider error is a finished job, not a failed one: the answer that comes back says what went wrong. A job fails only when the call could not be made at all.

Cancelling

Cancelling stops a queued job before it runs. A call already running stops within seconds if it is streaming; otherwise it finishes and is paid for. Either way a paid-for answer is attached to the cancelled job and can still be collected.

What is kept, and for how long

  • The job row expires after a week. The answer outlives it in the AI run log, where a feature can still collect it by its run number.
  • The request (prompts, document references) is cleared from the job as soon as the job is decided. Whatever the run log keeps is governed by its own settings.
  • Permissions: a background call reads stored documents with the security groups the person had when they started it, which matters only if access is removed in the minutes before it runs.

What goes wrong, and how to tell

  • Jobs sit at queued for ever: the Background Jobs task is disabled, or the task engine is not running.
  • A video started from code or an AI tool is refused with "the background worker is not running": the worker is not on, and the platform will not start a paid video that nothing would collect. Switch on Background Jobs.
  • A video started from a browser or MCP client says to keep the window open, or to keep checking: the worker is off, so only that person's polling will save the video. If they stop, it is still charged.
  • A job says ready but there is no answer: run logging was off, or the run could not be written. Turn Log every call on.

Worked example

A team's custom app checks each submission pack against a checklist, which takes two or three minutes a time. The architect switches on Background Jobs and confirms the task engine ran within the last minute. A caseworker presses Check, sees "Queued", then "Checking the submission...", and two minutes later the findings appear on the record. On AI Usage the run shows its cost and the background job it belonged to, and the job row disappears a week later while the run stays.

Recommendations

  • Switch on Background Jobs on any installation that generates video or runs long AI work.
  • Keep run logging on; background answers depend on it.
  • Watch the Background Jobs datastore for jobs that stay queued.
  • Tell people that cancelling a running call may still cost money, and that its answer can still be collected.