Cold Starts

If your workflow doesn't process an event for roughly 5 minutes, Pipedream turns off the execution environment that runs your code. When your workflow receives another event, Pipedream creates a new execution environment and process your event. Initializing this environment takes a few seconds, which delays the execution of this first event. This is common on serverless platforms, and is typically referred to as a "cold start".

If your workflow needs to process data in a time-sensitive manner (for example, if you're issuing an HTTP response), you can implement the following workaround to keep your workflow "warm".

• Create a scheduled workflow that runs roughly every 5 minutes, making an HTTP request to your HTTP-triggered workflow on the /warm path (see example workflow (opens new window)).
• Then, in your original workflow, add a step at the top that ends the workflow early if it receives a request on this /warm path. You can set this path to be whatever you'd like — /warm is just an example. On normal requests, that step won't run and your workflow will proceed as normal (see example workflow (opens new window)).

We're tracking the ability to keep a workflow permanently warm here (opens new window). Feel free to follow that issue to receive updates.

Still have questions?

Please reach out if this doc didn't answer your question. We're happy to help!