refactor(poll): use per-worker backoff counters

- Introduce workerState holding consecutiveEmpty and consecutiveErrors
- Plumb workerState through pollOnce, fetchTask and calculateInterval
- Drop the shared atomic.Int64 counters from Poller

With Capacity > 1, the previous shared counters inflated whenever multiple
workers each saw a single empty response, triggering an unnecessarily long
backoff. Per-worker state keeps each goroutine's backoff independent.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

internal/app/poll/poller.go

@@ -34,9 +34,15 @@ type Poller struct {
 	shutdownJobs context.CancelFunc
 
 	done chan struct{}
+}
 
-	consecutiveEmpty  atomic.Int64 // count of consecutive polls with no task available
+// workerState holds per-goroutine polling state. Backoff counters are
-	consecutiveErrors atomic.Int64 // count of consecutive fetch errors
+// per-worker so that with Capacity > 1, N workers each seeing one empty
+// response don't combine into a "consecutive N empty" reading on a shared
+// counter and trigger an unnecessarily long backoff.
+type workerState struct {
+	consecutiveEmpty  int64
+	consecutiveErrors int64
 }
 
 func New(cfg *config.Config, client client.Client, runner *run.Runner) *Poller {
@@ -74,7 +80,7 @@ func (p *Poller) Poll() {
 }
 
 func (p *Poller) PollOnce() {
-	p.pollOnce()
+	p.pollOnce(&workerState{})
 
 	// signal that we're done
 	close(p.done)
@@ -111,8 +117,9 @@ func (p *Poller) Shutdown(ctx context.Context) error {
 
 func (p *Poller) poll(wg *sync.WaitGroup) {
 	defer wg.Done()
+	s := &workerState{}
 	for {
-		p.pollOnce()
+		p.pollOnce(s)
 
 		select {
 		case <-p.pollingCtx.Done():
@@ -126,11 +133,11 @@ func (p *Poller) poll(wg *sync.WaitGroup) {
 // calculateInterval returns the polling interval with exponential backoff based on
 // consecutive empty or error responses. The interval starts at FetchInterval and
 // doubles with each consecutive empty/error, capped at FetchIntervalMax.
-func (p *Poller) calculateInterval() time.Duration {
+func (p *Poller) calculateInterval(s *workerState) time.Duration {
 	base := p.cfg.Runner.FetchInterval
 	maxInterval := p.cfg.Runner.FetchIntervalMax
 
-	n := max(p.consecutiveEmpty.Load(), p.consecutiveErrors.Load())
+	n := max(s.consecutiveEmpty, s.consecutiveErrors)
 	if n <= 1 {
 		return base
 	}
@@ -155,11 +162,11 @@ func addJitter(d time.Duration) time.Duration {
 	return d + time.Duration(jitter)
 }
 
-func (p *Poller) pollOnce() {
+func (p *Poller) pollOnce(s *workerState) {
 	for {
-		task, ok := p.fetchTask(p.pollingCtx)
+		task, ok := p.fetchTask(p.pollingCtx, s)
 		if !ok {
-			interval := addJitter(p.calculateInterval())
+			interval := addJitter(p.calculateInterval(s))
 			timer := time.NewTimer(interval)
 			select {
 			case <-timer.C:
@@ -171,8 +178,8 @@ func (p *Poller) pollOnce() {
 		}
 
 		// Got a task — reset backoff counters for fast subsequent polling.
-		p.consecutiveEmpty.Store(0)
+		s.consecutiveEmpty = 0
-		p.consecutiveErrors.Store(0)
+		s.consecutiveErrors = 0
 
 		p.runTaskWithRecover(p.jobsCtx, task)
 		return
@@ -192,7 +199,7 @@ func (p *Poller) runTaskWithRecover(ctx context.Context, task *runnerv1.Task) {
 	}
 }
 
-func (p *Poller) fetchTask(ctx context.Context) (*runnerv1.Task, bool) {
+func (p *Poller) fetchTask(ctx context.Context, s *workerState) (*runnerv1.Task, bool) {
 	reqCtx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(ctx, p.cfg.Runner.FetchTimeout)
 	defer cancel()
 
@@ -206,15 +213,15 @@ func (p *Poller) fetchTask(ctx context.Context) (*runnerv1.Task, bool) {
 	}
 	if err != nil {
 		log.WithError(err).Error("failed to fetch task")
-		p.consecutiveErrors.Add(1)
+		s.consecutiveErrors++
 		return nil, false
 	}
 
 	// Successful response — reset error counter.
-	p.consecutiveErrors.Store(0)
+	s.consecutiveErrors = 0
 
 	if resp == nil || resp.Msg == nil {
-		p.consecutiveEmpty.Add(1)
+		s.consecutiveEmpty++
 		return nil, false
 	}
 
@@ -223,7 +230,7 @@ func (p *Poller) fetchTask(ctx context.Context) (*runnerv1.Task, bool) {
 	}
 
 	if resp.Msg.Task == nil {
-		p.consecutiveEmpty.Add(1)
+		s.consecutiveEmpty++
 		return nil, false
 	}
 

internal/app/poll/poller_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+// Copyright 2026 The Gitea Authors. All rights reserved.
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
+
+package poll
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"errors"
+	"testing"
+	"time"
+
+	runnerv1 "code.gitea.io/actions-proto-go/runner/v1"
+	connect_go "connectrpc.com/connect"
+	"github.com/stretchr/testify/assert"
+	"github.com/stretchr/testify/mock"
+	"github.com/stretchr/testify/require"
+
+	"gitea.com/gitea/act_runner/internal/pkg/client/mocks"
+	"gitea.com/gitea/act_runner/internal/pkg/config"
+)
+
+// TestPoller_PerWorkerCounters verifies that each worker maintains its own
+// backoff counters. With a shared counter, N workers each seeing one empty
+// response would inflate the counter to N and trigger an unnecessarily long
+// backoff. With per-worker state, each worker only sees its own count.
+func TestPoller_PerWorkerCounters(t *testing.T) {
+	client := mocks.NewClient(t)
+	client.On("FetchTask", mock.Anything, mock.Anything).Return(
+		func(_ context.Context, _ *connect_go.Request[runnerv1.FetchTaskRequest]) (*connect_go.Response[runnerv1.FetchTaskResponse], error) {
+			// Always return an empty response.
+			return connect_go.NewResponse(&runnerv1.FetchTaskResponse{}), nil
+		},
+	)
+
+	cfg, err := config.LoadDefault("")
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	p := &Poller{client: client, cfg: cfg}
+
+	ctx := context.Background()
+	s1 := &workerState{}
+	s2 := &workerState{}
+
+	// Each worker independently observes one empty response.
+	_, ok := p.fetchTask(ctx, s1)
+	require.False(t, ok)
+	_, ok = p.fetchTask(ctx, s2)
+	require.False(t, ok)
+
+	assert.Equal(t, int64(1), s1.consecutiveEmpty, "worker 1 should only count its own empty response")
+	assert.Equal(t, int64(1), s2.consecutiveEmpty, "worker 2 should only count its own empty response")
+
+	// Worker 1 sees a second empty; worker 2 stays at 1.
+	_, ok = p.fetchTask(ctx, s1)
+	require.False(t, ok)
+	assert.Equal(t, int64(2), s1.consecutiveEmpty)
+	assert.Equal(t, int64(1), s2.consecutiveEmpty, "worker 2's counter must not be affected by worker 1's empty fetches")
+}
+
+// TestPoller_FetchErrorIncrementsErrorsOnly verifies that a fetch error
+// increments only the per-worker error counter, not the empty counter.
+func TestPoller_FetchErrorIncrementsErrorsOnly(t *testing.T) {
+	client := mocks.NewClient(t)
+	client.On("FetchTask", mock.Anything, mock.Anything).Return(
+		func(_ context.Context, _ *connect_go.Request[runnerv1.FetchTaskRequest]) (*connect_go.Response[runnerv1.FetchTaskResponse], error) {
+			return nil, errors.New("network unreachable")
+		},
+	)
+
+	cfg, err := config.LoadDefault("")
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	p := &Poller{client: client, cfg: cfg}
+
+	s := &workerState{}
+	_, ok := p.fetchTask(context.Background(), s)
+	require.False(t, ok)
+	assert.Equal(t, int64(1), s.consecutiveErrors)
+	assert.Equal(t, int64(0), s.consecutiveEmpty)
+}
+
+// TestPoller_CalculateInterval verifies the per-worker exponential backoff
+// math is correctly driven by the worker's own counters.
+func TestPoller_CalculateInterval(t *testing.T) {
+	cfg, err := config.LoadDefault("")
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	cfg.Runner.FetchInterval = 2 * time.Second
+	cfg.Runner.FetchIntervalMax = 60 * time.Second
+	p := &Poller{cfg: cfg}
+
+	cases := []struct {
+		name         string
+		empty, errs  int64
+		wantInterval time.Duration
+	}{
+		{"first poll, no backoff", 0, 0, 2 * time.Second},
+		{"single empty, still base", 1, 0, 2 * time.Second},
+		{"two empties, doubled", 2, 0, 4 * time.Second},
+		{"five empties, capped path", 5, 0, 32 * time.Second},
+		{"many empties, capped at max", 20, 0, 60 * time.Second},
+		{"errors drive backoff too", 0, 3, 8 * time.Second},
+		{"max(empty, errors) wins", 2, 4, 16 * time.Second},
+	}
+	for _, tc := range cases {
+		t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
+			s := &workerState{consecutiveEmpty: tc.empty, consecutiveErrors: tc.errs}
+			assert.Equal(t, tc.wantInterval, p.calculateInterval(s))
+		})
+	}
+}