049_Dead_Letter_Queues

Dead Letter Queues

By default, Wolverine will try to move dead letter messages in SQS to a single, global queue named “wolverine-dead-letter-queue.”

Customizing the Default Dead Letter Queue Name

The built-in default name wolverine-dead-letter-queue is fine for a single deployment, but multi-environment AWS accounts that share a region collide on it across environments. Override the default for the entire SQS transport in one call:

using var host = await Host.CreateDefaultBuilder()
    .UseWolverine(opts =>
    {
        opts.UseAmazonSqsTransport()
            .DefaultDeadLetterQueueName("my-service-dlq")
            .AutoProvision();
 
        // No per-listener config needed — every listener picks up the
        // transport-wide default unless it overrides explicitly.
        opts.ListenToSqsQueue("orders");
        opts.ListenToSqsQueue("shipments");
    }).StartAsync();

Resolution order, per listener:

1. ConfigureDeadLetterQueue("name") on the listener wins.
2. DisableDeadLetterQueueing() on the listener wins (no DLQ for that one).
3. Otherwise the transport-wide DefaultDeadLetterQueueName(...) is used.
4. If none of the above is set, the historical default wolverine-dead-letter-queue applies.

The supplied name is sanitized via the same SQS-name normalization (SanitizeSqsName) used by per-listener config, so dots and other illegal SQS characters get the same treatment everywhere. DisableAllNativeDeadLetterQueues() (covered below) still overrides everything; the global kill-switch takes precedence over both the transport default and any per-listener config.

Wolverine system queues (response and control queues, when EnableSystemQueues() is on) explicitly opt out of dead-lettering and are unaffected by the transport default — they still resolve to “no DLQ” regardless of DefaultDeadLetterQueueName.

Per-listener overrides

The transport default still composes cleanly with the per-listener API. Override on a single queue at a time (or by conventions too of course) like:

var host = await Host.CreateDefaultBuilder()
    .UseWolverine(opts =>
    {
        opts.UseAmazonSqsTransport();
 
        // No dead letter queueing
        opts.ListenToSqsQueue("incoming")
            .DisableDeadLetterQueueing();
 
        // Use a different dead letter queue
        opts.ListenToSqsQueue("important")
            .ConfigureDeadLetterQueue("important_errors", q =>
            {
                // optionally configure how the dead letter queue itself
                // is built by Wolverine
                q.MaxNumberOfMessages = 1000;
            });
    }).StartAsync();

snippet source | anchor

Disabling All Native Dead Letter Queueing

In one stroke, you can disable all usage of native SQS queues for dead letter queueing with this syntax:

using var host = await Host.CreateDefaultBuilder()
    .UseWolverine(opts =>
    {
        opts.UseAmazonSqsTransportLocally()
            // Disable all native SQS dead letter queueing
            .DisableAllNativeDeadLetterQueues()
            .AutoProvision();
 
        opts.ListenToSqsQueue("incoming");
    }).StartAsync();

snippet source | anchor

This would force Wolverine to use any persistent envelope storage for dead letter queueing.

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url: /tutorials/dead-letter-queues.md