Cylc set-outputs on a task that does not exist

Cylc Cylc Support
1

Hi,

I just wanted to check if it is expected behaviour that if you run cylc set-outputs active_suite //*/asdfasdfsdfadfasdf (i.e. a task name that does not exist) it should be a success instead of an error?

$ cylc set-outputs active_suite //*/asdfsadfsdf
Done
$ echo $?
0

I expected an error message and a non-zero return code as it could have been a hard to spot typo and caused confusion about why it was not working.

For reference, performing this operation on an workflow name that does not exist returns 1 and an error message.

2

Similarly, doing cylc hold on a task that does not exist (nor will ever exist) does not return an error either.

3

Yes, this is the expected behaviour.

Cylc commands are asynchronous, when you run them, they queue the operation to run on the Cylc scheduler.

This means that the command returns before the operation is performed so the status of the operation cannot be communicated back.

We would like to allow the CLI to “subscribe” to the outcome of the operation in order to allow more information to be communicated back, it’s perfectly possible, but we have a lot of other work to do before we will be able to find time for this.

4

To add to this, for now you’ll have to monitor the scheduler log to find out the outcome of commands like these