Can one drop rabbitmq messages when queues are too large using amqplib in nodejs?

Question

I'm using amqplib in a nodejs application. There's some heavy processing on the front-end side inducing some delay in the reception of rabbitmq messages. When monitoring my queues with rabbitmqctl list_queues, the number of messages waiting to be processed never stops climbing.

Is there a way to setup my channel so as to drop messages when the queue has a given number of messages waiting?

Below is how I setup my channel:

amqp.connect('amqp://localhost')
    .then(conn => {
        return conn.createChannel();
    })
    .then(channel => {
        channel.assertQueue(q, {durable: false, autoDelete: true});
        channel.prefetch(1);
        channel.bindQueue(q.queue, topic, 'myroutingkey');

        return channel.consume(q, (msg) => {
            mycallback(channel, msg);
        });
    })
    .then(() => {})
    .catch(err => {});

Answer 1

Thanks to Jørgen's pointer to the rabbitmq doc, I found the equivalent in the amqplib doc, and I can enforce the dropping behaviour by adding maxLength: 1 to my queue settings

channel.assertQueue(q, {durable: false, autoDelete: true, maxLength: 1});