Workers now form a priority pipeline (thumbnails -> metadata ->
embeddings -> tagging): a worker only claims jobs when no
higher-priority tier has claimable work, so stages drain one at a time
at full speed instead of all workers contending for CPU (shared rayon
pool), disk, and the DB writer simultaneously.
Each tier gate is a single read-only EXISTS query per idle tick using
the same exclusion set the corresponding claim would (that worker''s
paused folders plus actively-indexing folders), so paused or mid-scan
work never blocks lower tiers, and failed jobs stop gating once they
leave pending. Deferred workers wake within one backoff interval
(250-750ms) of the higher tier draining.
A watcher-driven trickle of new files briefly pauses lower tiers by
design. A user-initiated tag run during a large embedding backlog
waits for it; pausing embeddings per folder overrides if tags are
wanted first.
LyAhn
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