Fix: DOS-625 Address action execution blocking new requests

* The usage of BackgroundTasks in the new execute_action code was found to be causing blockages of new requests being picked up by the event loop. I think this maybe a reccurance of encode/starlette#919 which they claim is resolved, but still doesn't appear to be working for us. It may be due to one of our middlewares behaving in a particular way that causes this, but the fix applied here appears to be the simplest fix for now.
* In this instance we have replaced the usage of background_tasks.add_task with asyncio.create_task that will run the task in the loop without worrying about its result.

packages/dara-core/changelog.md

@@ -2,6 +2,10 @@
 title: Changelog
 ---
 
+## NEXT
+
+-  Address action execution blocking new requests due to an issue around BackgroundTask processing in starlette
+
 ## 1.6.0
 
 -   Fixed an issue where import discovery would consider the same symbols repeatedly causing it to run much longer than necessary

packages/dara-core/dara/core/internal/execute_action.py

@@ -16,11 +16,11 @@
 """
 from __future__ import annotations
 
+import asyncio
 from contextvars import ContextVar
 from typing import Any, Callable, Mapping, Optional, Union
 
 import anyio
-from fastapi import BackgroundTasks
 
 from dara.core.base_definitions import ActionResolverDef, BaseTask
 from dara.core.interactivity.actions import (
@@ -109,7 +109,6 @@ async def execute_action(
     ws_channel: str,
     store: CacheStore,
     task_mgr: TaskManager,
-    background_tasks: BackgroundTasks,
 ) -> Union[Any, BaseTask]:
     """
     Execute a given action with the provided context.
@@ -182,6 +181,8 @@ async def handle_action(act_impl: Optional[ActionImpl]):
             process_result=_stream_action, args=[action, ctx], kwargs=resolved_kwargs, notify_channels=notify_channels
         )
 
-    # No tasks - run directly as bg task and return execution id
-    background_tasks.add_task(_stream_action, action, ctx, **resolved_kwargs)
+    # No tasks - run directly as an asyncio task and return the execution id
+    # Originally used to use FastAPI BackgroundTasks, but these ended up causing a blocking behavior that blocked some
+    # new requests from being handled until the task had ended
+    asyncio.create_task(_stream_action(action, ctx, **resolved_kwargs))
     return execution_id

packages/dara-core/dara/core/internal/routing.py

@@ -128,9 +128,7 @@ class ActionRequestBody(BaseModel):
         """Execution id, unique to this request"""
 
     @core_api_router.post('/action/{uid}', dependencies=[Depends(verify_session)])
-    async def get_action(
-        uid: str, body: ActionRequestBody, bg_tasks: BackgroundTasks
-    ):  # pylint: disable=unused-variable
+    async def get_action(uid: str, body: ActionRequestBody):  # pylint: disable=unused-variable
         store: CacheStore = utils_registry.get('Store')
         task_mgr: TaskManager = utils_registry.get('TaskManager')
         registry_mgr: RegistryLookup = utils_registry.get('RegistryLookup')
@@ -147,7 +145,7 @@ async def get_action(
 
         # Execute the action - kick off a background task to run the handler
         response = await action_def.execute_action(
-            action_def, body.input, values, static_kwargs, body.execution_id, body.ws_channel, store, task_mgr, bg_tasks
+            action_def, body.input, values, static_kwargs, body.execution_id, body.ws_channel, store, task_mgr
         )
 
         if isinstance(response, BaseTask):