Sub-minute server-side execution for real-time game timers — is it possible on Appwrite Cloud?
Hey — I'm building a real-time auction app on Appwrite Cloud and running into a timing limitation I'd please love some clarity on.
My use case: when a bidding timer expires (e.g. 20 seconds), I need the server to automatically close the lot and trigger the next lot within a few seconds — even if no clients are connected.
Currently I'm using: • A 1-minute cron function as the server-side backstop • Client-side polling hooks (every 10s) as a faster fallback when the app is foregrounded
The problem: the minimum cron interval is 1 minute, so if all users have closed the app, there can be up to 60s of dead time between each lot in an auction. For a 20s bidding timer this feels broken.
What I really need is something like Elixir's GenServer — a persistent process that can schedule a callback for exactly deadlineTs - now() milliseconds in the future.
My questions:
- Is there any way to achieve sub-minute server-side execution on Appwrite Cloud beyond the 1-minute cron minimum?
- Are there plans to support shorter cron intervals (e.g. every 10s or 30s)?
- Is there a pattern others use for real-time game timers on Appwrite that I'm missing?
Happy to share more context about the architecture if useful. Thanks! 😊
