# IMQService.start() method · @imqueue/rpc

Source: https://imqueue.org/api/rpc/latest/rpc.imqservice.start/
Published: 2026-08-04
Author: @imqueue maintainers (https://github.com/imqueue)
Package: @imqueue/rpc 3.5.3 — generated reference, not hand-written

Initializes this instance of service and starts handling request messages.

**Signature:**

```typescript
start(): Promise<IMessageQueue | undefined>;
```
**Returns:**

Promise<IMessageQueue \| undefined>

the started message queue instance

## Remarks

In single-process mode this starts the queue in the current process. With [IMQServiceOptions.multiProcess](https://imqueue.org/api/rpc/latest/rpc.imqserviceoptions.multiprocess/) the cluster primary forks `cpus().length * childrenPerCore` workers, each receiving its index in the `workerId` environment variable, and installs an exit watcher that terminates the process with code 1 as soon as one worker dies — workers are never respawned, so supervision is left to the process manager.

Note that the primary also starts its own queue consumer and metrics listener after forking, so a service configured for N workers runs N+1 consumers and N+1 processes attempt to bind the metrics port.