TailStatic-Tools and Processing Jobs

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The Role of TailStatic-Tools

TailStatic-Tools is a specialized background service that performs the "heavy lifting" for your websites. By separating these tasks from the main application, TailStatic remains fast and responsive for dashboard users even while complex site rendering is happening in the background. See Docker Images and Service Roles for an architecture overview.

Key Responsibilities

1. Site Rendering

Converts your Components and Liquid Templates and Pages and Markdown Content into high-performance static HTML.

2. Tailwind CSS Processing

Automatically compiles your Tailwind classes, purges unused styles, and generates optimized CSS files for each site.

3. Asset Bundling and Minification

Combines multiple Files, Assets, and Collections into bundles to reduce the number of requests made by visitors. It also minifies HTML to decrease page load times.

4. Social Image (OG) Rendering

Uses a headless browser or specialized engine to render custom SEO Files, Sitemaps, and OG Images for your pages based on your site's design.

Monitoring Job Health

You can monitor the status of processing jobs in the dashboard. Detailed records are available in Analytics and Logs.

  • Pending: The job is in the queue waiting for TailStatic-Tools to pick it up.
  • Processing: TailStatic-Tools is currently working on the job.
  • Completed: The job finished successfully.
  • Failed: The job encountered an error.

Handling Job Failures

If a job fails, check the Job Logs for specific error messages. Common causes include:

  • Missing Assets: A Liquid template refers to a file that does not exist in the Site Directory Layout.
  • Syntax Errors: A mistake in your Custom Liquid Tags or Tailwind configuration.
  • Service Unreachable: The main TailStatic app cannot communicate with the TailStatic-Tools container. Check your Docker Quickstart settings.
  • Timeout: A very large site might take longer to render than the allowed timeout period.

Health Checks

TailStatic periodically performs health checks on the TailStatic-Tools service. You can see the current status in the Application Settings. If the service shows as "Offline," verify that the tailstatic-tools container is running and that the URL configured during the Installation Wizard is correct.

Next Steps

Processing jobs are triggered whenever you use Preview Workflows or Publish Workflows. If you encounter persistent issues, consult Troubleshooting TailStatic. All changes to the processed files are tracked in the Persistent Storage Layout.

See Also