🔗 A practical guide to Elixir’s task module — let’s create a cron job

By the time you find yourself working with the Task module, it’s fair to assume you already have a basic understanding of Elixir syntax and concurrency, particularly how processes work. You've likely come across GenServer, Elixir’s most common abstraction for managing long-lived processes and state. It’s practically a rite of passage in any Elixir developer’s journey.

But what about Task?

Despite being part of the standard library, Task is a module I find underused in many applications. In my experience, it often flies under the radar—perhaps because GenServer tends to steal the spotlight when it comes to process abstraction. Yet, Task is a powerful tool when you need to perform short-lived, concurrent operations without the boilerplate of GenServer.