In this episode, we're diving into how to manage and transition the state of a model—in this case, a ServerTask—using a handy package from Sparsey. We start by installing the required package and then jump right into adding a new state column to our server_tasks table. This allows us to keep track of what stage each server task is in, like pending, in progress, complete, or failed.
You'll see step-by-step how we set up state casting on the model and create a dedicated directory and classes to define each possible state. We go through configuring these states, specifying which states are allowed to transition to others. For example, a task can only go from pending to in progress, and in progress to complete or failed, so you can't accidentally set an impossible state combination.
After the setup, we try things out: we clear our database, create a new server, and check that newly created tasks start in the pending state. Then, as a quick test, we add a simple route to manually trigger state transitions right from a browser. This lets us see the state value update in the database in real time and shows how our rules prevent any unexpected transitions.
By the end of the episode, you'll have a neat system for managing the state of each job in a batch, and you'll be ready to hook these transitions into the bigger batch process next.