Summary Of Major Changes

Terminology

Cylc now uses more widely understood terms for several core concepts.

Cylc 7 Term	Cylc 8 Term
suite	workflow
batch system	job runner
suite daemon	scheduler
`suite.rc`	`flow.cylc`

Note the configuration filename is now flow.cylc, not suite.rc.

Cylc 7 Compatibility Mode

Continuing to use the old suite.rc filename triggers a backward compatibility mode in Cylc 8 which supports Cylc 7 workflow configurations out of the box, with some caveats. However, to future-proof your workflow and take full advantage of Cylc 8 you should upgrade to Cylc 8 syntax.

Upgrading To Cylc 8

See also

Major Changes: Configuration Changes at Cylc 8
Major Changes: Cylc 7 Compatibility Mode

There have been some configuration changes at Cylc 8. To upgrade your Cylc 7 suite to a Cylc 8 workflow, first make sure it validates in Cylc 7 without any warnings, then rename the workflow configuration file from suite.rc to flow.cylc, then run cylc validate in Cylc 8 and take action on any warnings.

Note

Validation warnings use a shorthand notation to refer to nested configuration settings on a single line, like this: [section][sub-section]item.

New Web and Terminal UIs

See also

Major Changes: Cylc 8 UIs

At Cylc 8, there are two UIs available to monitor and control your workflows:

a terminal UI application
cylc tui <workflow_id>
a web based UI application (requires Cylc UI Server)
cylc gui

Command Changes

cylc run <suite_name> at Cylc 7 has become cylc play <workflow_id>.

See also

User Guide: Start, Restart, Reload
Major Changes: Play Pause Stop
Major Changes: Command Line Interface

At Cylc 8, use cylc pause <workflow_id> to pause a workflow, halting all job submission. To restart the workflow, use cylc play <workflow_id>.

To start a fresh run, use cylc install and play it safely in the new run directory.

(Note that cylc hold and cylc release pause and release individual tasks.)

Task/Job States

Tasks are nodes in the abstract workflow graph, representing applications to run at the appropriate point in the workflow. A job is the script (and subsequent process) submitted by Cylc to actually run the application. A task can have multiple jobs as the result of automatic retries or manual re-triggering.

The 13 task/job states in Cylc 7 have been simplified to 8. Tasks and jobs have been separated and states of both can be viewed in the GUI.

For more information, see Task/Job States.

Optional and Required Task Outputs

See also

Major Changes:Graph branching, optional outputs and suicide triggers
User Guide:Required Outputs
User Guide:Optional Outputs

By default, all Cylc 8 tasks are required to succeed - i.e., success is a required output. Otherwise they will be marked as incomplete tasks needing user intervention. In a workflow with incomplete tasks, if there is nothing left to do, the scheduler will stall rather than shut down.

Alternatively, task outputs can be marked as optional. This supports graph branching and it allows the scheduler to correctly diagnose workflow completion.

Platform Awareness

See also

Platforms at Cylc 8.

Cylc 7 was aware of individual job hosts - one selected a host using: [runtime][<namespace>][remote]host.

Cylc 8 is aware of sets of host settings called [job] platforms. To choose a platform for a task use [runtime][<namespace>]platform

Hosts of a platform must share a file system and job runner: If one host is unavailable Cylc 8 can use other hosts on the same platform to interact with jobs.

The same hosts can belong to multiple platforms, for example you might be able to use the same host to launch both background and Slurm jobs.

Note

Cylc 8 will pick a sensible platform for your Cylc 7 settings, These deprecated settings will be removed in a future release.

Workflow Installation

Cylc 8 supports workflow installation.

For users of Rose, this replaces the functionality of rose suite-run.

Cylc Install

See also

Major Changes: Moving to Cylc Install

Cylc install cleanly separates workflow source directory from run directory. It installs workflow files ready for cylc play.

$ pwd
~/cylc-src/demo

$ ls
flow.cylc

$ cylc install
INSTALLED demo/run1 from /home/oliverh/cylc-src/demo

$ cylc play demo
...
demo/run1: oliver.niwa.local PID=6702

By default, run numbers increment with each install.

File Installation

When the first job runs on a remote platform (after start-up, or after a cylc reload), a remote initialization process is triggered to install workflow files there.

Symlink Dirs

See also

User Guide: Symlink Directories
User Guide: Remote Initialization

Symlinking the workflow directories used by Cylc provides a useful way of managing disk space.

These symlinks are created on a per install target basis, as configured in global.cylc[install][symlink dirs]. Install targets are managed on a site level, for more information see What Are Install Targets?

This functionality replaces the Rose root dir configuration for Cylc 7 (however, note it does not allow per-workflow configuration).

Removing Workflows

Workflows can be deleted with cylc clean - see Removing Workflows. This replaces the rose suite-clean functionality.

Architecture

There have been fundamental changes to the architecture of Cylc. You can read about the new system design here Architecture.

Scheduling Algorithm

The scheduling algorithm has been changed, more information is available: Scheduling Algorithm.

Other Changes

There are an assortment of other features implemented at Cylc 8. Some noteworthy minor changes include:

Runahead Limit: The default runahead limit has been increased from three cycles to five.
Queues: Internal Queues are now more efficient (for the scheduler), we now recommend using queues to restrict the number of running tasks in situations where graphing may have been used previously.
Time Zones: [scheduler]cycle point time zone now defaults to UTC, unless you are working in Cylc 7 Compatibility Mode.
Job Scripts: All user-defined task scripting now runs in a subshell, so you can safely switch Python environments inside tasks without affecting Cylc. Further information is available in the User Guide: Job Scripts.
Packaging: Cylc 8 (and its package dependencies) is now available from Conda Forge and PyPI for installations into a Python 3 virtual environment.
Remote usernames: If usernames differ on remote job hosts they must now be configured using an SSH config file rather than the via Cylc 7 [remote]owner configuration. See Remote Usernames.