TaskController: setPriority() method

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

Note: This feature is available in Web Workers.

The setPriority() method of the TaskController interface can be called to set a new priority for this controller's signal. If a prioritized task is configured to use the signal, this will also change the task priority.

Observers are notified of priority changes by dispatching a prioritychange event. The method will only notify if the priority actually changes (the event is not fired if the priority would not be changed by the call).

Note that task priority can only be changed for tasks with mutable priorities. If the task is immutable, the function call is ignored.

Syntax

js
setPriority(priority)

Parameters

priority

The priority of the task. One of: "user-blocking", "user-visible", "background".

Return value

None (undefined).

Exceptions

NotAllowedError DOMException

A priority change has been started when one is already running.

Examples

First we create a task controller. In this case we don't specify a priority, so it will default to user-visible.

js
// Create a TaskController with default priority: 'user-visible'
const controller = new TaskController();

Then we pass the controller's signal to the Scheduler.postTask() method.

js
// Post task passing the controller's signal.
// The signal priority sets the initial priority of the task
scheduler
  .postTask(() => "Task execute", { signal: controller.signal })
  .then((taskResult) => {
    console.log(`${taskResult}`);
  }) // Run on success)
  .catch((error) => {
    console.log(`Catch error: ${error}`);
  }); // Run on fail

The controller can then be used to change the priority

js
// Change the priority to 'background' using the controller
controller.setPriority("background");

Additional examples, including showing how to handle the event that results from changing the priority, can be found in: Prioritized Task Scheduling API > Examples.

Specifications

Specification
Prioritized Task Scheduling
# dom-taskcontroller-setpriority

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
setPriority
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 94 (Release date: 2021-09-21)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 94 (Release date: 2021-09-24)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 142 (Release date: 2025-08-19)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 80 (Release date: 2021-10-05)
footnote Full support
Safari – No support
Safari
footnote No support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 94 (Release date: 2021-09-21)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 142 (Release date: 2025-08-19)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 66 (Release date: 2021-12-15)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – No support
Safari on iOS
footnote No support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 17 (Release date: 2022-05-04)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 94 (Release date: 2021-09-21)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – No support
WebView on iOS
footnote No support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support
No support
No support