4: Runtime helpers and scheduling

Two consumers ride the daemon without you calling /dispatch yourself: the async runtime helpers, and the scheduler.

4.1: The runtime helpers

Phlo's helpers for running a target out of band all use the pool when the app opts in, and fall back to a one-shot subprocess otherwise:

Helper	Does
`phlo_sync('Class::method', ...$args)`	Run a target and wait for its return value
`phlo_async('Class::method', ...$args)`	Queue a target fire-and-forget; returns once accepted
`await($job, $job, ...)`	Run many targets concurrently and collect their results
`phlo_stream('Class::method', ...$args)`	Yield a target's output line by line

The opt-in is one constant in the app entrypoint:

phlo_app(
	id: 'Api',
	host: 'api.example.com',
	daemon: 3001,
);

With daemon set, the helpers dispatch by app path onto the pool; without it, they spawn a one-shot process exactly as before. The app code is identical either way, so adopting the daemon only changes throughput.

The gain is largest when one request fans out. await() over a hundred jobs is a hundred app boots on the one-shot path, but a hundred dispatches onto a resident pool with the daemon, bounded by the worker count instead of an unbounded burst of subprocesses:

$results = await(
	['translate::run', 'nl', $text],
	['translate::run', 'de', $text],
	['translate::run', 'fr', $text],
)

4.2: Scheduling without cron

The daemon runs tasks::run every minute on every app in its host map, which replaces the per-app cron entry behind the tasks resource. There is nothing to configure: the per-task schedule lives in %app->tasks (the every: on each task), and an app that does not load the tasks resource is skipped automatically after its first tick:

{
	'dashboard.example.nl': { app: '/var/www/dashboard/www/app.php', build: true },
	'api.example.nl': { app: '/var/www/api/www/app.php', build: false },
}

Everything downstream is unchanged: the same %app->tasks matching, the same due-check, the same on-disk state. Cron stays the fallback for hosts without a daemon; you pick one trigger, not both.

Last updated on 21 September 2026