# Queue backpressure proposal

![Current flow](assets/flow.svg)

p99 latency spikes once queue depth crosses 500. This proposal adds a
shed-load check before a job reaches the worker.

## What changes

1. The publisher checks depth before enqueueing
2. Over threshold, low-priority jobs get a 429 instead of a slot
3. The dashboard already reads this queue's depth metric — no new instrumentation