We're currently midway through the process of fading out the concept of different types for a Synapse worker process. For example synapse.app.pusher, synapse.app.federation_sender etc. While initially this provided a quick way to configure a worker to perform certain actions, it is also rather confusing and the inability to specify multiple types per worker can limit the flexibility of deployment.

For instance, it's currently not possible to configure a worker to both send events to appservices (synapse.app.appservice) and update the user directory tables (synapse.app.user_dir), as the functionality is forcefully disabled unless the worker is specifically marked as each respective type:

Instead, workers should be configured via worker file config options, so that one could simply set notify_appservices: true and update_user_directory: true in the worker config to enable the worker to handle both sets of tasks.

As many worker deployments currently rely on the worker_type configuration, a deprecation period is necessary. A rough plan for carrying this out could look like:

• Allow all current worker configurations through config file values alone.
• Announce a deprecation period for the worker_type config option.
• After some time, remove the worker_type config option. All workers are now a "generic worker", though this term is no longer a necessary distinction.

In the short term, the first step would allow for more immediate flexibility for medium-sized deployments - which need to move tasks off the main process, but don't have the resources to spin up a separate worker for each type.

Superseded worker types so far

• synapse.app.appservice Add the notify_appservices_from_worker configuration option (superseding notify_appservices) to allow a generic worker to be designated as the worker to send traffic to Application Services. #12452
• synapse.app.user_dir Add the update_user_directory_from_worker configuration option (superseding update_user_directory) to allow a generic worker to be designated as the worker to update the user directory. #12654
• synapse.app.pusher
• synapse.app.federation_sender
• synapse.app.media_repository
• synapse.app.frontend_proxy