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Workflow Operations

This section introduces how to use the vela CLI to operate workflow.

Suspend Workflow​

If you have an executing workflow, you can use the suspend command to suspend the workflow.

vela workflow suspend <name>
tip

Nothing will happen if you suspend an application that has a completed workflow, which is in running status. Please refer to Suspend and Resume for more examples.

Resume Workflow​

Once the workflow is suspended, you can use the vela workflow resume command to manually resume the workflow.

vela workflow resume <name>
tip

Please refer to Suspend and Resume for more examples.

Terminate Workflow​

You can use vela workflow terminate to terminate an executing workflow.

vela workflow terminate <name>
tip

Different from suspend, the terminated workflow can't be resumed, you can only restart the workflow. This means restart the workflow will execute the workflow steps from scratch while resume workflow only continue the unfinished steps.

caution

Once application workflow is terminated, KubeVela controller won't reconcile the application resources. It can also be used in some cases when you want to manually operate the underlying resources, please caution the configuration drift.

Restart Workflow​

You can use vela workflow restart to restart an executing workflow.

vela workflow restart my-app

Scheduled Restarts​

For automated restarts, workflows can schedule their own re-execution using the restart-workflow step. This enables periodic tasks, delayed execution, or time-based orchestration. See the restart-workflow step documentation for examples.

You can also schedule restarts by adding the app.oam.dev/restart-workflow annotation to an Application:

# One-time restart at specific time (RFC3339 format)
kubectl annotate application my-app app.oam.dev/restart-workflow="2025-01-20T15:00:00Z"

# Recurring restart every 24 hours
kubectl annotate application my-app app.oam.dev/restart-workflow="24h"

# Immediate restart
kubectl annotate application my-app app.oam.dev/restart-workflow="true"

The annotation accepts three formats:

  • RFC3339 timestamp: One-time restart at the specified time
  • Duration (e.g., "5m", "1h", "24h"): Recurring restarts at the specified interval
  • "true": Immediate restart

Check the logs of the workflow​

You can use vela workflow logs to check the logs of the workflow.

tip

Note that only the steps with op.#Log in its definition will output logs.

vela workflow logs <name>

Debug Workflow​

You can use vela workflow debug to debug the workflow.

vela workflow debug <name>
tip

Please checkout the Debug doc for more examples.