Boost Your .NET App with Hangfire: Background Jobs Made Easy

Why Background Jobs?

Imagine you're building an e-commerce platform. When a customer places an order, you don’t want to:

• Send email confirmation

• Update inventory

• Generate invoice

• Notify shipping partner

all in the same HTTP request.

Doing so would slow down the user experience or even cause request timeouts. This is where Hangfire steps in.

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What is Hangfire?

Hangfire is a powerful open-source library that enables you to create, process, and manage background jobs in .NET — no Windows Service or separate process needed.

https://dotnetfullstackdev.medium.com/

✅ Easy to use
✅ Persistent (uses database)
✅ Supports retries, dashboards, and queues
✅ Works with ASP.NET, .NET Core, and others

Getting Started with Hangfire in ASP.NET Core

Step 1: Install NuGet Packages

Install-Package Hangfire
Install-Package Hangfire.AspNetCore
Install-Package Hangfire.SqlServer

Step 2: Configure Hangfire in Program.cs

builder.Services.AddHangfire(config =>
    config.UseSqlServerStorage(builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("HangfireDb")));

builder.Services.AddHangfireServer();

Step 3: Add Middleware in Program.cs

app.UseHangfireDashboard(); // Add before app.Run()

// Optional: Secure the dashboard
app.UseHangfireDashboard("/jobs", new DashboardOptions
{
    Authorization = new[] { new MyAuthorizationFilter() }
});

Step 4: Create a Job

public class EmailService
{
    public void SendWelcomeEmail(string userEmail)
    {
        // Simulate email sending
        Console.WriteLine($"Email sent to {userEmail}");
    }
}

Step 5: Fire Job from Controller

public class UsersController : Controller
{
    private readonly EmailService _emailService;

    public UsersController(EmailService emailService)
    {
        _emailService = emailService;
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public IActionResult RegisterUser(string email)
    {
        // Fire-and-forget job
        BackgroundJob.Enqueue(() => _emailService.SendWelcomeEmail(email));
        
        return Ok("User registered successfully!");
    }
}

Scheduled & Recurring Jobs

Delayed Job

BackgroundJob.Schedule(() => Console.WriteLine("Delayed job"), TimeSpan.FromMinutes(5));

Recurring Job

RecurringJob.AddOrUpdate(
    "DailyReportJob",
    () => Console.WriteLine("Sending daily report..."),
    Cron.Daily);

Job Monitoring Dashboard

Hangfire comes with a built-in dashboard at /hangfire or your configured route.

You can:

• View succeeded, failed, and processing jobs

• Retry failed jobs

• Monitor queues

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Security Tip

Restrict the dashboard in production:

public class MyAuthorizationFilter : IDashboardAuthorizationFilter
{
    public bool Authorize(DashboardContext context)
    {
        return true; // Replace with your own logic
    }
}

Best Practices

✅ Always use DI for services
✅ Offload time-consuming logic to jobs
✅ Use queues for job separation (emailQueue, billingQueue)
✅ Monitor dashboard regularly
✅ Handle exceptions and retries with care

Real-World Example: Order Processing System

Let’s say:

1. User places an order

2. API adds an order to DB

3. BackgroundJob triggers:

   • Inventory update

   • Email confirmation

   • Invoice PDF generation

   • Notification to shipping provider

Each of these can be separate jobs, even with dependencies (continuations).

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Final Thoughts

Hangfire makes background processing in .NET elegant and reliable. Whether it's email delivery, data cleanup, reporting, or automation — Hangfire is a solid tool that fits right into your ASP.NET Core workflow.