Our team has been discussing how state works in Workflows and this is our understanding: If at any

Zzhawtof Our team has been discussing how state works in Workflows and this is our unders...

M

https://developers.cloudflare.com/workflows/build/rules-of-workflows/#do-not-rely-on-state-outside-of-a-step covers this (as do examples on the rest of the page re: idempotency). What’s missing?

Cloudflare Docs

Rules of Workflows · Cloudflare Workflows docs

A Workflow contains one or more steps. Each step is a self-contained, individually retriable component of a Workflow. Steps may emit (optional) state that allows a Workflow to persist and continue from that step, even if a Workflow fails due to a network or infrastructure issue.

SSaket Hi, I am new to workflows. My team is building a new application from the bottom...

M

Matt Silverlock•4/27/25, 10:46 PM

For many folks: yes, it can.

MMatt Silverlock https://developers.cloudflare.com/workflows/build/rules-of-workflows/#do-not-rel...

S

scook•4/28/25, 4:20 AM

IMO the docs should very clearly spell out what kind of code is allowed outside of steps and why. If you explain some of the behind-the-scenes of how workflows work (e.g. it re-executes the entire workflow while using cached state of already-executed steps), that will clarify a lot to the readers. It helped me a lot once I understood the why behind the rules, instead of simply being told the rules.

D

ddsgadget•4/28/25, 11:13 AM

Hi, we've been using workflow for awhile and they work great. However, today we created a new workflow and whenever it runs we get an RPC error in cloudflare dashboard (origin: rpc, trigger: default.run) . We have never seen an RPC call after a workflow is executed, so we are not even sure why there is an RPC call. Also, there is no explanation of what the error actually is on the run. This only happens with the new Workflow. None of the other workflows generate any type of RPC call or error. Are workflow runs supposed to generate an RPC call? And if so, why don't we see it with other workflows and how do we figure out what the error is? Also, i should mention that the workflow that triggers an RPC error itself runs fine and has no errors, so again this is very strange. There is an RPC error generated by teh workflow, but the workflow runs fine? UPDATE: Actually in looking thru our logs over the last 24 hours, we do see other workflows generate errors on the "run" stage in an RPC, the entry point being our workflow. However, all of these workflows execute perfectly fine and we have no issues. So what is the RPC error exactly? Interestingly, workflows called from Durable Objects do not show any errors like this, but workflows called in normal workers do?

Dddsgadget Hi, we've been using workflow for awhile and they work great. However, today we ...

D

ddsgadget•4/28/25, 8:02 PM

BTW, I noticed that if you terminate the workflow at the last step like the code below, there is no RPC error on the defaut.run of the workflow. However, when you don't terminate the workflow and/or you return something in the final step, you get an error in the rpc for the workflow default.run. As per above, even with the error, the workflows work fine. So i think this is a bug in how worfklows are called and terminated. I guess there is currently no way to tell the system that the workflow has ended, and that causes an error? Unless you terminate it? Not really sure. Anyhow, we now just terminate all workflows at the final step to remvoe this error. let instance = await this.env.<WORKFLOW>.get(instanceId);
await instance.terminate();

A

andy•4/29/25, 9:10 AM

Hi, perhaps this is a question already answered in the docs but I can't see it.

How can we see the console logs from a workflow.
i.e. if we have some run like this, how can I see the console logs.

  async run(context: WorkflowEvent<MyParams>, step: WorkflowStep): Promise<void> {
    const workflowId = context.instanceId;
    const params = context.payload;
    console.log(`Workflow ${workflowId} started with params:`, [...Object.keys(params)]);

    try {

      // Step 1: Example
      const processedData = await step.do('process-data', async () => {
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing data...`);
        
        // Simulate work - replace with actual logic
        await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000)); // Simulate delay
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing complete.`);
        return true;
      });

  async run(context: WorkflowEvent<MyParams>, step: WorkflowStep): Promise<void> {
    const workflowId = context.instanceId;
    const params = context.payload;
    console.log(`Workflow ${workflowId} started with params:`, [...Object.keys(params)]);

    try {

      // Step 1: Example
      const processedData = await step.do('process-data', async () => {
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing data...`);
        
        // Simulate work - replace with actual logic
        await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000)); // Simulate delay
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing complete.`);
        return true;
      });

  async run(context: WorkflowEvent<MyParams>, step: WorkflowStep): Promise<void> {
    const workflowId = context.instanceId;
    const params = context.payload;
    console.log(`Workflow ${workflowId} started with params:`, [...Object.keys(params)]);

    try {

      // Step 1: Example
      const processedData = await step.do('process-data', async () => {
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing data...`);
        
        // Simulate work - replace with actual logic
        await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000)); // Simulate delay
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing complete.`);
        return true;
      });

  async run(context: WorkflowEvent<MyParams>, step: WorkflowStep): Promise<void> {
    const workflowId = context.instanceId;
    const params = context.payload;
    console.log(`Workflow ${workflowId} started with params:`, [...Object.keys(params)]);

    try {

      // Step 1: Example
      const processedData = await step.do('process-data', async () => {
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing data...`);
        
        // Simulate work - replace with actual logic
        await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000)); // Simulate delay
        console.log(`[${workflowId}] Step 1: Processing complete.`);
        return true;
      });

I have tried

wrangler workflows instances describe

wrangler workflows instances describe

wrangler workflows instances describe

wrangler workflows instances describe and I can't see the log messages there.
I have tried looking at the logs of the bound worker and I can't see the log messages there either.

D

ddsgadget•4/29/25, 9:19 AM

@andy Yeah I asked this same question a few days ago. As far as I can tell, you can't see the console.log anywhere. Hopefully they will implement something where you can see the console.log on each step in the admin dashboard for workflows, but right now, you can't see a thing.

Dddsgadget @andy Yeah I asked this same question a few days ago. As far as I can tell, you ...

A

andy•4/29/25, 9:20 AM

thanks! At least I don't need to waste time looking

I

Isak•4/29/25, 5:03 PM

Hello @Matt Silverlock, sorry for pinging you. Could you provide some guidance on this issue? workflowslocal dev not working

T

Tim Lonsdale•4/29/25, 7:05 PM

Hi chaps, relatively new to workflows. We have a relatively weird use-case in mind. Each user of our software will have "work/jobs" enqueued that will need to be processed. The caveat is that each bit of work must run sequentially. I was thinking that this could be accomplished by having a long/infinitely-long running workflow for each user that sleeps for x seconds, wakes and checks for work - processes it if it exists - otherwise goes back to sleep (repeat forever). Would something like that be achievable with workflows? With CF, we only pay for compute time so I wouldn't have thought the costs of this would be too onerous vs. using something like Lambda

TTim Lonsdale Hi chaps, relatively new to workflows. We have a relatively weird use-case in mi...

B

boop•4/29/25, 8:49 PM

You could use a cron trigger on a worker that checks for work, and then send that result to workflows
https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/configuration/cron-triggers/

Bboop You could use a cron trigger on a worker that checks for work, and then send tha...

I

Isaac Hinman•4/29/25, 9:53 PM

But the minimum cron interval would be 1 minute, no? We were hoping for something on the order of seconds

IIsaac Hinman But the minimum cron interval would be 1 minute, no? We were hoping for somethin...

B

boop•4/29/25, 10:19 PM

Durable Objects with alarms that call a worker every x seconds? Is your sequential requirement per-user or for the entire work/jobs queue?

S

SakuraFC•4/30/25, 8:22 AM

I am seeing interesting issues with workflows. When I try to return simple object {} (empty object) as a state, workflow always logs exception but does work. Took me half a day to try and figure out what was going wrong despite it working. So far the only workaround I found is to return stringified object and from the step and then convert it back to the object and use in the remainder of the workflow. Not sure if it's a bug or expected.

Bboop Durable Objects with alarms that call a worker every x seconds? Is your sequenti...

I

Isaac Hinman•4/30/25, 8:28 AM

Sequential requirement is per-user, not for the entire queue. Actually we'd ideally have multiple guaranteed sequential workflows per user

I

Isaac Hinman•4/30/25, 8:29 AM

For a bit of context, we're doing IMAP stuff and it's nasty – guaranteed sequential is unfortunately a necessity

IIsaac Hinman Sequential requirement is per-user, not for the entire queue. Actually we'd idea...

B

boop•4/30/25, 8:55 AM

In that case you could just use workflows and a queue if you expect to go over the instance creation limit.

The workflow could consume the jobs you've added in the queue, and the steps inside the workflow would be your sequential processing per job

O

Ollie•4/30/25, 1:07 PM

Is anyone experiencing any issues with workflows getting stuck, l have some workflows that have around 165 instances stuck in running state, showing 0 steps in the UI, and l can't pause or terminate them

D

DanGamble•4/30/25, 1:16 PM

I've been getting workflow issues today with deployment and in the UI as well

D

DanGamble•4/30/25, 1:16 PM

Uploaded oka-app (13.95 sec)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         │14:14:40 │                   typegen │   ℹ Watching for changes in /Users/dangamble/Code/oka-app...
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
✘ [ERROR] A request to the Cloudflare API (/accounts/###/workflows/pickup-points-post-create-workflow) failed.                                                                                                                                          │──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
  workflows.api.error.internal_server [code: 10001]

Uploaded oka-app (13.95 sec)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         │14:14:40 │                   typegen │   ℹ Watching for changes in /Users/dangamble/Code/oka-app...
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
✘ [ERROR] A request to the Cloudflare API (/accounts/###/workflows/pickup-points-post-create-workflow) failed.                                                                                                                                          │──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
  workflows.api.error.internal_server [code: 10001]

Uploaded oka-app (13.95 sec)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         │14:14:40 │                   typegen │   ℹ Watching for changes in /Users/dangamble/Code/oka-app...
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
✘ [ERROR] A request to the Cloudflare API (/accounts/###/workflows/pickup-points-post-create-workflow) failed.                                                                                                                                          │──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
  workflows.api.error.internal_server [code: 10001]

Uploaded oka-app (13.95 sec)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         │14:14:40 │                   typegen │   ℹ Watching for changes in /Users/dangamble/Code/oka-app...
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
✘ [ERROR] A request to the Cloudflare API (/accounts/###/workflows/pickup-points-post-create-workflow) failed.                                                                                                                                          │──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     │
  workflows.api.error.internal_server [code: 10001]

O

Ollie•4/30/25, 1:32 PM

Yeah everything has just ground to a halt for me, and the workflow api does nothing, so l can't stop or pause anything

B

Boragorn•4/30/25, 4:12 PM

Can someone help me with this?

O

Ollie•4/30/25, 4:13 PM

There is 100% an issue with workflows right now, everything just errors with

workflows.api.error.internal_server [code: 10001]

workflows.api.error.internal_server [code: 10001]

OOllie There is 100% an issue with workflows right now, everything just errors with `wo...

J

James•4/30/25, 4:26 PM

Could you /link so I can easily escalate this and the team can take a look at your account please?

JJames Could you /link so I can easily escalate this and the team can take a look at yo...

O

Ollie•4/30/25, 4:27 PM

Done!

J

James•4/30/25, 4:28 PM

Thanks!

OOllie There is 100% an issue with workflows right now, everything just errors with `wo...

D

Diogo Ferreira•4/30/25, 4:35 PM

can you please share your account id?

BBoragorn Can someone help me with this?

D

Diogo Ferreira•4/30/25, 4:35 PM

can you please share your account id?

DDiogo Ferreira can you please share your account id?

O

Ollie•4/30/25, 4:43 PM

I think my ID is: 0601cdee659d3394e0d37db62e73705c

DDiogo Ferreira can you please share your account id?

B

Boragorn•4/30/25, 5:08 PM

998ad664b89c2f9efa99a3b294eadd9d

OOllie I think my ID is: 0601cdee659d3394e0d37db62e73705c

D

Diogo Ferreira•4/30/25, 5:47 PM

Let us take a look into it

DDiogo Ferreira Let us take a look into it

O

Ollie•4/30/25, 8:49 PM

Just wondering if any updates on this?

O

Ollie•4/30/25, 9:05 PM

Just as an FYI the CF Dashboard is still having the same issues:

S

scook•4/30/25, 9:12 PM

This might not be related to the recent breakage, but after deploying my workflow to my staging/prod environments, I can see they exist in the Workflows dashboard, but calling them in the code results in:

Error: (workflow.not_found) Provided Workflow does not exist
  at callFetcher(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:24:15)
  at WorkflowImpl.create(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:78:24)

Error: (workflow.not_found) Provided Workflow does not exist
  at callFetcher(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:24:15)
  at WorkflowImpl.create(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:78:24)

Error: (workflow.not_found) Provided Workflow does not exist
  at callFetcher(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:24:15)
  at WorkflowImpl.create(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:78:24)

Error: (workflow.not_found) Provided Workflow does not exist
  at callFetcher(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:24:15)
  at WorkflowImpl.create(cloudflare-internal:workflows-api:78:24)

Any idea what could be wrong?

Sscook This might not be related to the recent breakage, but after deploying my workflo...

S

scook•4/30/25, 9:21 PM

It appears to be a bug? This happened multiple times. When I first deployed a new Workflow to an environment, the code invocation would result in

Error: (workflow.not_found) Provided Workflow does not exist

Error: (workflow.not_found) Provided Workflow does not exist

. Upon the second redeployment, it would work correctly.

B

Boragorn•4/30/25, 10:23 PM

I might have identified a bug related to waitForEvent.

Here's the relevant code:

export class SimpleWorkflow extends WorkflowEntrypoint<
  Env,
  SimpleWorkflowPayload
> {
  async run(event: WorkflowEvent<SimpleWorkflowPayload>, step: WorkflowStep) {
    console.log("Simple workflow started", event.payload);

    await step.do("testing timeout", async () => {
      console.log(`Initializing test: ${event.payload.name}`);
      const eventResponse = await step.waitForEvent("waiting for event", {
        type: "test",
        timeout: 10000,
      });
      console.log("Test event received", eventResponse);
      return { status: "initialized" };
    });

    console.log("workflow complete");
  }
}

export class SimpleWorkflow extends WorkflowEntrypoint<
  Env,
  SimpleWorkflowPayload
> {
  async run(event: WorkflowEvent<SimpleWorkflowPayload>, step: WorkflowStep) {
    console.log("Simple workflow started", event.payload);

    await step.do("testing timeout", async () => {
      console.log(`Initializing test: ${event.payload.name}`);
      const eventResponse = await step.waitForEvent("waiting for event", {
        type: "test",
        timeout: 10000,
      });
      console.log("Test event received", eventResponse);
      return { status: "initialized" };
    });

    console.log("workflow complete");
  }
}

export class SimpleWorkflow extends WorkflowEntrypoint<
  Env,
  SimpleWorkflowPayload
> {
  async run(event: WorkflowEvent<SimpleWorkflowPayload>, step: WorkflowStep) {
    console.log("Simple workflow started", event.payload);

    await step.do("testing timeout", async () => {
      console.log(`Initializing test: ${event.payload.name}`);
      const eventResponse = await step.waitForEvent("waiting for event", {
        type: "test",
        timeout: 10000,
      });
      console.log("Test event received", eventResponse);
      return { status: "initialized" };
    });

    console.log("workflow complete");
  }
}

export class SimpleWorkflow extends WorkflowEntrypoint<
  Env,
  SimpleWorkflowPayload
> {
  async run(event: WorkflowEvent<SimpleWorkflowPayload>, step: WorkflowStep) {
    console.log("Simple workflow started", event.payload);

    await step.do("testing timeout", async () => {
      console.log(`Initializing test: ${event.payload.name}`);
      const eventResponse = await step.waitForEvent("waiting for event", {
        type: "test",
        timeout: 10000,
      });
      console.log("Test event received", eventResponse);
      return { status: "initialized" };
    });

    console.log("workflow complete");
  }
}

Whenever

waitForEvent

waitForEvent

fails due to a timeout exception, the step is retried as expected.

However, once the step re-runs, I’m no longer able to send events—the workflow appears to be running, but the event cannot be received or triggered anymore.

P

piffie•5/1/25, 5:41 AM

We hit a new error message:

Workflow V2: Error processing batch 5 {
  "message": "Aborting engine: Grace period complete",
  "error": {
    "remote": true,
    "durableObjectReset": true
  },

Workflow V2: Error processing batch 5 {
  "message": "Aborting engine: Grace period complete",
  "error": {
    "remote": true,
    "durableObjectReset": true
  },

Workflow V2: Error processing batch 5 {
  "message": "Aborting engine: Grace period complete",
  "error": {
    "remote": true,
    "durableObjectReset": true
  },

Workflow V2: Error processing batch 5 {
  "message": "Aborting engine: Grace period complete",
  "error": {
    "remote": true,
    "durableObjectReset": true
  },

is that due to worker updates during execution? its not very clear what this means.
Or is it we hit a limit? but what limit?

O

Ollie•5/1/25, 7:41 AM

I am not sure what has happened with workflows product recently, but since yesterday, the product just doesn't work for me, i've had to stop everything, and now looking at alternative solutions.

I can't trigger / pause / resume / terminate any workflows, l met with the error code

as earlier.

Over 3000 workflows failed yesterday with the exact same error

This instance experienced an internal error which prevented it from running. If this is persistent, please contact support: https://cfl.re/3WgEyrH

This instance experienced an internal error which prevented it from running. If this is persistent, please contact support: https://cfl.re/3WgEyrH

This instance experienced an internal error which prevented it from running. If this is persistent, please contact support: https://cfl.re/3WgEyrH

This instance experienced an internal error which prevented it from running. If this is persistent, please contact support: https://cfl.re/3WgEyrH

Any new workflow l try to start this morning goes straight into

queued

queued

state and will never run.

I have 4K+ messages going into dead-letter-queues because workflows can't be instantiated.

@James / @Diogo Ferreira any help would be appreciated, as this product was working perfectly up until yesterday moring.

P

piffie•5/1/25, 7:57 AM

And a question here:
is it better to split up heavy workflows into iterating through steps, or rather break it down that each pagination runs in a sub-workflow?

Ppiffie And a question here: is it better to split up heavy workflows into iterating th...

M

Matt Silverlock•5/1/25, 6:10 PM

Entirely depends on what you're doing? A single Workflow is (IMO) easier to reason about, keeps the code in the same place, and if the task is tightly bound, simplifies error boundaries and tracking

Start with one and (later) only add more if you need to fire off sub-Workflows.

SSakuraFC I am seeing interesting issues with workflows. When I try to return simple objec...

D

ddsgadget•5/1/25, 10:53 PM

Yes, we have the same issue and this seems to be a bug. All our workflows work perfectly fine, but throw exceptions in the dashboard after they finish. We generally return, {success:true} at the end of a workflow, which should be fine according the docs, but somehow this is an error? It's not clear what the actual format is for a return, especially the last step in a workflow. The only way around this for us has been to just terminate workflows at the end, otherwise they will all throw exceptions even if they work perfectly fine.

A

Austin B•5/1/25, 11:35 PM

I've got some intances of a workflow queued that don't seem to be getting picked up. Have been in this state for a while. Is there any way to tell in the dashboard why these aren't getting picked up?

Dddsgadget Yes, we have the same issue and this seems to be a bug. All our workflows work p...

S

SakuraFC•5/1/25, 11:49 PM

I found that the only reason that it throws (in the beginning for us) without impacting our workflows, is when we return an object or array from the step.

Ppiffie We hit a new error message: `Workflow V2: Error processing batch 5 { "message...

P

piffie•5/2/25, 3:14 AM

any info on that error @Matt Silverlock ?

AAustin B I've got some intances of a workflow queued that don't seem to be getting picked...

O

Ollie•5/2/25, 4:40 AM

You are most likely facing the same issues as am having in this thread: workflowsI am not sure what has happened with.

@Diogo Ferreira / @Thomas Ankcorn we seem to have a few more of the race condition issues

C

CrisOG•5/2/25, 4:04 PM

Hey there! I'm new to using Workflows and I've got a question.

I'm creating a workflow that depends on a mTLS certs binding for making requests. For some reason, mTLS certs bindings don't work locally (env.CERT is always empty) so I need to do

--remote

--remote

for it work.

The problem with that is that

--remote

--remote

also makes my workflow to run remotely as well. Ideally, I'd like to run workflows locally while still being able to have certs work.

Is there a way to make this work?

Thanks in advance!

CCrisOG Hey there! I'm new to using Workflows and I've got a question. I'm creating a w...

M

Matt Silverlock•5/2/25, 4:07 PM

I'll ask the team, but if the mTLS bindings aren't supported locally, then... there's not a way to make it work locally.

Our team has been discussing how state works in Workflows and this is our understanding: If at any

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