What result does the launch function return in the context of Kotlin coroutines?

The launch function in Kotlin starts a new coroutine and immediately returns an object of type Job, which represents the launched coroutine.

This Job can be used to control the coroutine: cancel it, wait for its completion, etc. However, launch itself does not return the result of the coroutine's work — it is intended for starting background tasks that do not return a value.

Example:

val job = CoroutineScope(Dispatchers.Default).launch {
    // coroutine code
    delay(1000L)
    println("Task completed")
}

// You can cancel the coroutine
job.cancel()

Thus, launch returns a Job, not a computation result.