RabbitMQ Core Knowledge

Full Reference: See advanced.md for producer patterns (Node.js, Java, Python, Go), consumer patterns, security configuration, and high availability setup.

Deep Knowledge: Use mcp__documentation__fetch_docs with technology: rabbitmq for comprehensive documentation.

Quick Start (Docker)

services: rabbitmq: image: rabbitmq:3-management ports: - "5672:5672" # AMQP - "15672:15672" # Management UI environment: - RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER=admin - RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS=admin

Core Concepts

Concept Description

Exchange Routes messages to queues

Queue Buffer that stores messages

Binding Rule linking exchange to queue

Routing Key Message attribute for routing

Architecture

Producer ──▶ Exchange ──binding──▶ Queue ──▶ Consumer │ ├── direct (exact routing key match) ├── topic (pattern matching) ├── fanout (broadcast to all) └── headers (header-based routing)

Exchange Types

Type Routing Use Case

direct Exact key match Task queues, RPC

topic Pattern (*.#) Event routing

fanout Broadcast all Notifications

headers Header match Complex routing

Topic exchange patterns

order.* → matches order.created, order.updated order.# → matches order.created, order.item.added *.created → matches order.created, user.created

Queue Configuration

Argument Description

x-message-ttl

Message expiration (ms)

x-max-length

Max queue size

x-dead-letter-exchange

DLX for rejected messages

x-dead-letter-routing-key

DLQ routing key

x-queue-type

classic, quorum, stream

When NOT to Use This Skill

• Event streaming with replay - Kafka provides persistent log

• Ultra-high throughput (>100k msg/s) - Kafka or Pulsar scale better

• AWS-native architecture - SQS integrates better

• Lightweight messaging - NATS has simpler operations

• JMS compliance required - ActiveMQ provides JMS API

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern Why It's Bad Solution

No prefetch limit Consumer overwhelmed Set prefetch to 10-50

Classic queues in HA Data loss on node failure Use quorum queues

No DLX configured Poison messages loop forever Configure dead letter exchange

Automatic acks Message loss on crash Use manual acks

No publisher confirms Silent message loss Enable confirms for critical messages

Quick Troubleshooting

Issue Likely Cause Fix

Messages piling up Slow/dead consumer Check consumer count and processing

High memory usage Too many unacked messages Reduce prefetch, add consumers

Messages not routed Wrong routing key Check exchange-queue bindings

Duplicate messages Consumer crashed before ack Implement idempotent processing

Publisher confirms timeout Broker overloaded Reduce publish rate

Production Checklist

• TLS/SSL enabled

• Users with least privilege

• Virtual hosts for isolation

• Quorum queues for HA

• Dead letter exchanges configured

• Message TTL set

• Prefetch limits configured

• Publisher confirms enabled

• Monitoring dashboards

• Alerting configured

Reference Documentation

Available topics: basics , exchanges , queues , consumers , clustering , production