How are background tasks prevented from being garbage collected?

[jakubsvehla]

Hi!

In the official asyncio documentation, I read that you have to keep a strong reference of a task in order for it not to be garbage collected. However, I noticed that the current_app.add_background_task method adds the resulting task to a weak set so it seems that it only keeps a weak reference and it does not return the task so I cannot keep a strong reference myself. But I have tested it and it seems that there are still some strong references until the task finishes which keeps it from being collected. How does it work? Where are the strong reference kept?

Can I rely on the task not being collected before it finishes running?

Thanks!