Graceful Shutdown

{% answer %} GoFr listens for SIGINT and SIGTERM and, on either signal, runs App.Shutdown which calls Shutdown on the HTTP, gRPC, and metrics servers and Close on the container's datasource connections. The shutdown is bounded by SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD (default 30s); if it expires the process exits with whatever connections remain. Pair this with Kubernetes' terminationGracePeriodSeconds and a small preStop sleep to avoid losing in-flight requests during rolling restarts. {% /answer %}

When to use

Every production GoFr deployment on Kubernetes should be configured for graceful shutdown. Without it, rolling updates and node drains return 502/504s for any request that is mid-flight when a pod is terminated, and Pub/Sub consumers can lose un-committed messages.

How GoFr handles signals

App.Run sets up a signal-aware context:

ctx, stop := signal.NotifyContext(context.Background(), os.Interrupt, syscall.SIGINT, syscall.SIGTERM)

When that context is canceled, a goroutine creates a timeout context using SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD (default 30s) and calls App.Shutdown. The order is fixed by the framework — see pkg/gofr/gofr.go:96-114 — and Shutdown joins errors from each step:

1. httpServer.Shutdown(ctx) — stops accepting new connections, waits for in-flight handlers
2. grpcServer.Shutdown(ctx) — drains active streams
3. container.Close() — closes SQL pools, Redis clients, Pub/Sub consumers, and other registered datasources
4. metricServer.Shutdown(ctx) — stops /metrics
5. Logger close — if the logger implements io.Closer, its Close() is called last

The container's Close is what commits Pub/Sub offsets and lets SQL drivers finish in-progress queries. Application code does not need to coordinate this order.

OnStart hooks vs shutdown hooks

GoFr exposes OnStart hooks for synchronous startup work (cache warmup, seeding). There is no public OnShutdown hook today; App.Shutdown is what gets called and it operates on the framework's own resources. If you need cleanup on exit for resources you own (custom goroutines, file handles, third-party clients), use context-cancellation: pass a context.Context derived from signal.NotifyContext(...) into your goroutines and have each goroutine defer its own cleanup when that context is cancelled. The framework's App.Shutdown runs concurrently with this, so total wind-down stays within SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD.

The Kubernetes termination flow

When kubelet decides to evict a pod, it executes this sequence:

1. Pod's status flips to Terminating; endpoints controllers begin removing the pod from Service Endpoints.
2. preStop hook runs (if configured).
3. SIGTERM is sent to PID 1.
4. After terminationGracePeriodSeconds (default 30s), SIGKILL is sent.

Steps 1 and 3 race: kube-proxy on every node needs time to update iptables/IPVS rules. A pod can still receive new traffic for a second or two after SIGTERM. The fix is a preStop sleep that delays shutdown long enough for endpoint removal to propagate.

spec:
  terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 60
  containers:
    - name: api
      image: ghcr.io/example/orders-api:1.4.2
      lifecycle:
        preStop:
          exec:
            command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "sleep 5"]
      env:
        - name: SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD
          value: "45s"
      readinessProbe:
        httpGet:
          path: /.well-known/health
          port: 8000
      livenessProbe:
        httpGet:
          path: /.well-known/alive
          port: 8000

Sizing the grace period

Set the values so preStop + SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD is comfortably less than terminationGracePeriodSeconds. A useful starting point:

• preStop: 5s (covers endpoint propagation on most clusters)
• SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD: P99 request latency × 2, plus headroom for Pub/Sub commits
• terminationGracePeriodSeconds: preStop + SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD + 10s buffer

For a service with 2s P99, that's 5s + 30s + 10s = 45–60s.

Per-datasource behavior

• SQL. database/sql waits for active queries to finish on Close(). Long-running transactions can extend shutdown — keep request timeouts shorter than SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD.
• Redis / NoSQL. Clients close idle connections immediately and wait for in-flight commands.
• Pub/Sub. GoFr's subscription manager respects the shutdown context — consumers stop polling and commit current offsets where the broker supports it (Kafka, NATS JetStream).
• Cron jobs. GoFr's App.Shutdown drains HTTP, gRPC, and metrics servers and closes datasource connections — it does not stop the cron scheduler or wait for in-flight cron tasks. Cron jobs run with context.Background(), so they continue past SIGTERM and may be cut off when the container is killed at terminationGracePeriodSeconds. If you have long-running cron work that must finish, run it as a separate Kubernetes Job triggered by a CronJob resource instead of inside the same pod, so the pod's lifecycle doesn't interrupt it.

Verification

Trigger a rolling restart and watch the logs:

kubectl rollout restart deployment/orders-api -n prod
kubectl logs -f -l app=orders-api -n prod --previous

You should see Shutting down server with a timeout of 30s followed by Application shutdown complete on each terminating pod, with no connection reset errors on the client side. From a load-test client running during the restart, error rate should stay below 0.1%.

{% faq %} {% faq-item question="What is the default SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD in GoFr?" %} 30 seconds. It is configurable via the SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD env var and accepts any Go duration string (e.g., 45s, 1m30s). {% /faq-item %} {% faq-item question="Do I need a preStop hook if GoFr already handles SIGTERM?" %} Yes, on Kubernetes. The preStop sleep covers the brief window before kube-proxy updates iptables on every node — without it, pods can receive new connections after SIGTERM has already started the drain. {% /faq-item %} {% faq-item question="What happens if shutdown takes longer than SHUTDOWN_GRACE_PERIOD?" %} The shutdown context expires, App.Shutdown returns the deadline error, and Kubernetes will eventually SIGKILL the process when terminationGracePeriodSeconds elapses. {% /faq-item %} {% /faq %}