HTML: The Living Standard

To run tasks of several milliseconds back to back without any delay, while still yielding back to the browser to avoid starving the user interface (and to avoid the browser killing the script for hogging the CPU), simply queue the next timer before performing work:

function doExpensiveWork() {
  var done = false;
  // ...
  // this part of the function takes up to five milliseconds
  // set done to true if we're done
  // ...
  return done;
}

function rescheduleWork() {
  var id = setTimeout(rescheduleWork, 0); // preschedule next iteration
  if (doExpensiveWork())
    clearTimeout(id); // clear the timeout if we don't need it
}

function scheduleWork() {
  setTimeout(rescheduleWork, 0);
}

scheduleWork(); // queues a task to do lots of work

The most common reason for using queueMicrotask() is to create consistent ordering, even in the cases where information is available synchronously, without introducing undue delay.

For example, consider a custom element firing a load event, that also maintains an internal cache of previously-loaded data. A naïve implementation might look like:

MyElement.prototype.loadData = function (url) {
  if (this._cache[url]) {
    this._setData(this._cache[url]);
    this.dispatchEvent(new Event("load"));
  } else {
    fetch(url).then(res => res.arrayBuffer()).then(data => {
      this._cache[url] = data;
      this._setData(data);
      this.dispatchEvent(new Event("load"));
    });
  }
};

This naïve implementation is problematic, however, in that it causes its users to experience inconsistent behavior. For example, code such as

element.addEventListener("load", () => console.log("loaded"));
console.log("1");
element.loadData();
console.log("2");

will sometimes log "1, 2, loaded" (if the data needs to be fetched), and sometimes log "1, loaded, 2" (if the data is already cached). Similarly, after the call to loadData(), it will be inconsistent whether or not the data is set on the element.

To get a consistent ordering, queueMicrotask() can be used:

MyElement.prototype.loadData = function (url) {
  if (this._cache[url]) {
    queueMicrotask(() => {
      this._setData(this._cache[url]);
      this.dispatchEvent(new Event("load"));
    });
  } else {
    fetch(url).then(res => res.arrayBuffer()).then(data => {
      this._cache[url] = data;
      this._setData(data);
      this.dispatchEvent(new Event("load"));
    });
  }
};

By essentially rearranging the queued code to be after the JavaScript execution context stack empties, this ensures a consistent ordering and update of the element's state.

Another interesting use of queueMicrotask() is to allow uncoordinated "batching" of work by multiple callers. For example, consider a library function that wants to send data somewhere as soon as possible, but doesn't want to make multiple network requests if doing so is easily avoidable. One way to balance this would be like so:

const queuedToSend = [];

function sendData(data) {
  queuedToSend.push(data);

  if (queuedToSend.length === 1) {
    queueMicrotask(() => {
      const stringToSend = JSON.stringify(queuedToSend);
      queuedToSend.length = 0;

      fetch("/endpoint", stringToSend);
    });
  }
}

With this architecture, multiple subsequent calls to sendData() within the currently executing synchronous JavaScript will be batched together into one fetch() call, but with no intervening event loop tasks preempting the fetch (as would have happened with similar code that instead used setTimeout()).