--- title: Simplify AI agent orchestration with Lakebase Postgres description: CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) and Databricks built a production AI agent orchestration system for document processing using Lakebase Postgres as the sole... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/simplify-ai-agent-orchestration-with-lakebase-postgres-cfdi4m6tk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Simplify AI agent orchestration with Lakebase Postgres | daily.dev og:description: CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) and Databricks built a production AI agent orchestration system for document processing using Lakebase Postgres as the sole... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/simplify-ai-agent-orchestration-with-lakebase-postgres-cfdi4m6tk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/CfDI4m6tK.png og:image:alt: Simplify AI agent orchestration with Lakebase Postgres og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Simplify AI agent orchestration with Lakebase Postgres **[databricks](https://daily.dev/sources/databricks)** · 9 min read · 6 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) and Databricks built a production AI agent orchestration system for document processing using Lakebase Postgres as the sole infrastructure backbone — no Kafka, Redis, Airflow, or Temporal required. The architecture uses four Postgres-native patterns: FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED for concurrency-safe dequeuing, expiring leases for crash recovery, token-budget and concurrency-cap throttling for LLM rate limits, and idempotent callbacks. Real-time observability is delivered via Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY fanned out over Server-Sent Events to a dashboard, with per-task cost attribution scoped to specific Databricks Job run IDs. The result reduces document extraction time from hours to minutes while keeping the entire stack on Databricks-native services. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do you make a Postgres-based task queue safe for concurrent workers dequeuing tasks? Use SELECT ... FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED combined with an ORDER BY priority DESC, created_at clause. Each worker locks the row it selects while other workers skip that row and move to the next available task, avoiding duplicate processing while still respecting priority and FIFO ordering within a priority level. _Developers designing Postgres-backed queues can find implementation patterns like this through daily.dev._ ### How can you recover tasks stuck in a processing state after a worker crashes without an external coordination service? Record an expiring lease at dequeue time by setting a lease_expires_at timestamp (e.g., NOW() plus a configurable number of minutes) along with status and locked_by fields. A periodic sweeper process re-enqueues any task whose lease has expired, automatically recovering work from terminated workers within minutes, with no external scheduler needed. _Anyone building crash-resilient task queues can track patterns like this via daily.dev._ ### How do you implement real-time dashboard updates from Postgres without Redis or a WebSocket server? Use Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY events fired on state changes in the database, with the backend maintaining a single LISTEN connection and fanning events out over Server-Sent Events (SSE) to connected clients. Browsers use an EventSource connection and receive updates within about one second, with a permanent ten-second polling fallback since streaming through cloud ingress proxies can silently drop bytes. _Engineers weighing SSE versus WebSockets for live dashboards can follow architecture writeups like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How leading tech companies are killing the builder’s tax with Lakebase](https://daily.dev/posts/how-leading-tech-companies-are-killing-the-builder-s-tax-with-lakebase-xfo6upqr9) · databricks · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Databricks wants to merge the two databases every company runs](https://daily.dev/posts/databricks-wants-to-merge-the-two-databases-every-company-runs-mivqdovba) · The New Stack · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Real-Time AI Pipelines: Building a Kafka \+ Kubernetes \+ Databricks Stack for Agentic AI Systems](https://daily.dev/posts/real-time-ai-pipelines-building-a-kafka-kubernetes-databricks-stack-for-agentic-ai-systems-qoytpduhq) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Every AI Agent May Need PostgreSQL. Not Every Agent Should Own the Truth.](https://daily.dev/posts/every-ai-agent-may-need-postgresql-not-every-agent-should-own-the-truth--gponqmm61) · Planet PostgreSQL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#machine-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/machine-learning), [#postgresql](https://daily.dev/tags/postgresql), [#databricks](https://daily.dev/tags/databricks) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/simplify-ai-agent-orchestration-with-lakebase-postgres-cfdi4m6tk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Simplify AI agent orchestration with Lakebase Postgres","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/simplify-ai-agent-orchestration-with-lakebase-postgres-cfdi4m6tk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/simplify-ai-agent-orchestration-with-lakebase-postgres-cfdi4m6tk"},"datePublished":"2026-07-22T23:04:39.253Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T20:05:53.390Z","description":"CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) and Databricks built a production AI agent orchestration system for document processing using Lakebase Postgres as the sole...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d6b53c700807aa2c444815c8c08a9d6f?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d6b53c700807aa2c444815c8c08a9d6f?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"databricks","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"databricks","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/fa7aa720f2db4d1eba826814730482c8","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/databricks"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/simplify-ai-agent-orchestration-with-lakebase-postgres-cfdi4m6tk","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":6},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"machine-learning,postgresql,databricks","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"databricks","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/databricks"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Simplify AI agent orchestration with Lakebase Postgres"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/simplify-ai-agent-orchestration-with-lakebase-postgres-cfdi4m6tk#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do you make a Postgres-based task queue safe for concurrent workers dequeuing tasks?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Use SELECT ... 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