Outside Transactions

Warning

Using the outbox outside a transaction defeats its purpose:

# BAD: Not in a transaction
order = Order.objects.create(...)
send_email.delay(order.id)  # Written to outbox, but not atomic with Order

The relay logs a warning when this happens:

celery_outbox_not_in_transaction task_name=myapp.tasks.send_email

When It's Acceptable

Outside transactions may be acceptable for:

• Background jobs that don't need atomicity
• Tasks triggered by management commands
• Testing and development

Recommendations

1. Use transactions: Wrap related operations in transaction.atomic()
2. Enable warnings: Check logs for celery_outbox_not_in_transaction
3. Consider excluded tasks: If a task doesn't need transactional guarantees, add it to CELERY_OUTBOX_EXCLUDE_TASKS