Pausing the Orchestrator

This document explains the different Orchestrator Engine states and outlines the various methods to pause and resume the Orchestrator engine.

Orchestrator Engine States

The Orchestrator engine operates in three distinct states that control workflow execution and system behavior.

Status	Description	Workflow Behavior	Transitions
`RUNNING`	Normal operational state	New workflows can start, existing workflows with status `RUNNING` continue execution	Can transition to `PAUSING`
`PAUSING`	Transitional state during shutdown	No new workflows accepted, existing workflows are being gracefully stopped	Automatically transitions to `PAUSED` when complete
`PAUSED`	Fully stopped state	No workflow activity, all processes stopped	Can transition back to `RUNNING`
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## Pause and Resume the Orchestrator
There are several ways to pause (and resume) the Orchestrator:

1. Using the API

Pause Orchestrator

You can send a PUT request to the /api/settings/status endpoint with the global_lock parameter set to true to pause the Orchestrator. This will stop all running workflows and prevent new workflows from starting.

Via CLI:

curl -X PUT http://localhost:8080/api/settings/status \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"global_lock": true}'

Using Python:

import requests

response = requests.put(
    "http://localhost:8080/api/settings/status",
    json={"global_lock": True}
)
status = response.json()

Note

The Orchestrator Engine State should be RUNNING before pausing via above API call.

Resume Orchestrator

You can send a PUT request to the /api/settings/status endpoint with the global_lock parameter set to false to resume the Orchestrator. This will allow new workflows to start and existing workflows to continue execution.

curl -X PUT http://localhost:8080/api/settings/status \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"global_lock": false}'

Note

The Orchestrator Engine State should be PAUSED before resuming via above API call.

API Docs

You can also pause and resume the Orchestrator via the interactive Swagger UI API docs.

2. Using the UI

If you have access to the WFO UI (e.g. when running the example-orchestrator or when running both the orchestrator-core and orchestrator-ui), you can pause the Orchestrator from there.

Navigate to the "Settings" page in the left sidebar.
Click the "Pause workflow engine" button.