# Proposal: ActiveJob::Attributes to persist data between steps **URL:** \ **Category:** rubyonrails-core\ **Tags:** activejob\ **Created:** [April 28, 2026, 3:08pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/proposal-activejob-attributes-to-persist-data-between-steps/91051 "2026-04-28T15:08:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bart\_de\_Water](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/rubyonrails/user_avatar/discuss.rubyonrails.org/bart_de_water/32/14125_2.png) [@Bart\_de\_Water](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/Bart_de_Water)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 3:08pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/proposal-activejob-attributes-to-persist-data-between-steps/91051/1 "2026-04-28T15:08:38Z")
I already opened the PR and only later remembered I should’ve opened a discussion here, so belatedly: > At work we have multi-step jobs where we need to temporarily hold on to some intermediate data from one step that’s required for a subsequent step, and we don’t want/need to persist these long term on our Active Record models. We originally solved this problem with job-iteration and overriding the `serialize`/`deserialize` methods ([gist w/ prototype](https://gist.github.com/bdewater/3e6f04c7dc8144f5814b680ce3b7771a)). > > Rails 8.1 made multi-step jobs a first-class citizen with [Active Job Continuation](https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveJob/Continuation.html). For our needs the `step` DSL is an ergonomic improvement but it still missing a way to persist data across interruptions and resumptions. This PR adds that capability with `ActiveJob::Attributes`, using [Active Model Attributes](https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveModel/Attributes.html) under the hood. It is included by default in `ActiveJob::Continuable`, where IMO it is most useful, but could also be used standalone. PR: [Add `ActiveJob::Attributes` to persist data between steps #57208](https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/57208)