Local Development

QStash requires a publicly available API to send messages to. During development when applications are not yet deployed, developers typically need to expose their local API by creating a public tunnel. While local tunneling works seamlessly, it requires code changes between development and production environments and increase friction for developers. To simplify the development process, Upstash provides QStash CLI, which allows you to run a development server locally for testing and development.

You can download and run the QStash CLI executable binary in several ways:

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NPX (Node Package Executable)

Install the binary via the @upstash/qstash-cli NPM package:

npx @upstash/qstash-cli dev

// Start on a different port
npx @upstash/qstash-cli dev -port=8081

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Docker

QStash CLI is available as a Docker image through our public AWS ECR repository:

// Pull the image
docker pull public.ecr.aws/upstash/qstash:latest

// Run the image
docker run -p 8080:8080 public.ecr.aws/upstash/qstash:latest qstash dev

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Artifact Repository

You can download the binary directly from our artifact repository without using a package manager:

https://artifacts.upstash.com/#qstash/versions/

Select the appropriate version, architecture, and operating system for your platform. After extracting the archive file, run the executable:

$ ./qstash dev

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QStash CLI

Currently, the only available command for QStash CLI is dev, which starts a development server instance.

$ ./qstash dev --help
Usage of dev:
  -port int
        The port to start HTTP server at [env QSTASH_DEV_PORT] (default 8080)
  -quota string
        The quota of users [env QSTASH_DEV_QUOTA] (default "payg")

There are predefined test users available. You can configure the quota type of users using the -quota option, with available options being payg and pro. These quotas don’t affect performance but allow you to simulate different server limits based on the subscription tier.

After starting the development server using any of the methods above, it will display the necessary environment variables. Select and copy the credentials from one of the following test users:

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License

The QStash development server is licensed under the Development Server License, which restricts its use to development and testing purposes only. It is not permitted to use it in production environments. Please refer to the full license text for details.