---
title: "Amazon SQS driver"
description: "The babelqueue-sqs drop-in driver — a polyglot Amazon SQS queue on Laravel's native sqs connection. Polyglot jobs are sent as the canonical envelope with the §3 MessageAttributes; standard Laravel jobs pass straight through."
source: https://babelqueue.com/docs/laravel/1.x/amazon-sqs/
updated: 2026-06-13T00:00:00.000Z
---

# Amazon SQS driver

`babelqueue-sqs` is a **drop-in queue connection** that makes an Amazon SQS queue
polyglot. It extends Laravel's native `sqs` driver: jobs that opt into BabelQueue are
sent as the [canonical envelope](/docs/spec/1.x/envelope/) with the
[§3 SQS `MessageAttributes`](/docs/spec/1.x/broker-bindings/#amazon-sqs), so a Go, Python,
Node, Java or .NET worker can route and trace them — while **standard Laravel jobs on the
same connection pass straight through unchanged**.

## Requirements

The AWS SDK for PHP is required (Laravel lists it as a suggestion):

```bash
composer require aws/aws-sdk-php
```

## Configuration

Add a connection in `config/queue.php` with `driver` set to `babelqueue-sqs`. The
config keys are exactly Laravel's stock `sqs` keys:

```php
'connections' => [
    'babelqueue-sqs' => [
        'driver' => 'babelqueue-sqs',
        'key'    => env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
        'secret' => env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'),
        'prefix' => env('SQS_PREFIX', 'https://sqs.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/your-account-id'),
        'queue'  => env('SQS_QUEUE', 'orders'),
        'suffix' => env('SQS_SUFFIX', ''),
        'region' => env('AWS_DEFAULT_REGION', 'eu-central-1'),
    ],
],
```

The connector mirrors the stock `SqsConnector` (credentials, prefix/suffix), so anything
that works for `sqs` works here. For LocalStack/ElasticMQ, set an `endpoint` key as you
would for the native driver.

## Produce

Producing is identical to the other BabelQueue drivers — see
[Producing messages](/docs/laravel/1.x/producing-messages/). Dispatch a typed
`ShouldQueuePolyglot` job (or use the `BabelQueue` facade) onto the connection:

```php
use BabelQueue\Facades\BabelQueue;

BabelQueue::connection('babelqueue-sqs')
    ->publish('urn:babel:orders:created', ['order_id' => 1042]);
```

The job is sent as the canonical envelope (`MessageBody`) with the projected
`MessageAttributes` (`bq-job`/`bq-trace-id`/`bq-message-id`/`bq-schema-version`/
`bq-source-lang`/`bq-created-at`). A plain Laravel job dispatched to the same connection
is encoded the normal Laravel way — no envelope, no attributes — so existing workers keep
working.

## Consume

Run a worker against the connection as usual:

```bash
php artisan queue:work babelqueue-sqs
```

Polyglot messages — including those produced by **another language's SDK** — are decoded,
routed by URN through the dispatcher and handled; standard jobs run as normal. See
[Consuming messages](/docs/laravel/1.x/consuming-messages/) for handler registration.

> **`attempts` note.** As a Laravel driver, the reserved job surfaces the broker's
> **native** receive count via `SqsJob::attempts()` (i.e. `ApproximateReceiveCount`).
> This is the documented, exempt divergence from the framework-less SDKs, which reconcile
> `attempts` to `ApproximateReceiveCount − 1` — see the
> [SQS binding](/docs/spec/1.x/broker-bindings/#amazon-sqs).

Because the wire format is the canonical envelope, a message your Laravel app consumes
may have been produced by any BabelQueue SDK, and vice-versa.