How to Schedule Periodic Tasks with Celery in Django

To schedule periodic tasks in Django with Celery, use Celery Beat which acts as a scheduler. Define your tasks in Celery, then configure CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE in your Django settings to specify the task and its interval.

Syntax

Use CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE in Django settings to define periodic tasks. Each task needs a unique name, the task path, and a schedule using crontab or timedelta.

• task: The full Python path to the Celery task function.
• schedule: How often to run the task (e.g., every 10 seconds, daily at 7am).
• args: Optional tuple of arguments to pass to the task.

python

CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE = {
    'task-name': {
        'task': 'app.tasks.task_function',
        'schedule': crontab(minute='*/10'),  # every 10 minutes
        'args': (arg1, arg2),
    },
}

Example

This example shows how to create a simple periodic task that prints a message every minute using Celery and Celery Beat in Django.

python

from celery import Celery
from celery.schedules import crontab

app = Celery('proj')
app.conf.broker_url = 'redis://localhost:6379/0'

@app.task
def print_hello():
    print('Hello from periodic task!')

app.conf.beat_schedule = {
    'print-every-minute': {
        'task': 'proj.print_hello',
        'schedule': crontab(minute='*'),
    },
}

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.start()

Output

Hello from periodic task!  # printed every minute in worker logs

Common Pitfalls

• Not running celery beat alongside the worker will prevent periodic tasks from running.
• Incorrect task path in CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE causes task not found errors.
• Forgetting to configure a message broker like Redis or RabbitMQ stops Celery from working.
• Using print in tasks may not show output in your console; check worker logs instead.

bash

## Wrong: Missing beat scheduler
# Running only celery worker
celery -A proj worker --loglevel=info

## Right: Run beat and worker
celery -A proj beat --loglevel=info &
celery -A proj worker --loglevel=info

Quick Reference

Setting	Description	Example
CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE	Defines periodic tasks and their schedules	{'task-name': {'task': 'app.tasks.func', 'schedule': crontab(minute='*/5')}}
crontab	Schedule using cron syntax	crontab(minute='0', hour='7') # daily at 7am
timedelta	Schedule using time intervals	timedelta(seconds=30) # every 30 seconds
celery beat	Scheduler process to run periodic tasks	celery -A proj beat --loglevel=info
celery worker	Worker process to execute tasks	celery -A proj worker --loglevel=info

Key Takeaways

Use Celery Beat to schedule periodic tasks in Django with Celery.

Define tasks and their schedules in CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE in Django settings.

Always run both celery worker and celery beat processes to enable periodic tasks.

Use crontab or timedelta to specify task intervals clearly.

Check worker logs for task output instead of relying on print statements.