Lifecycle & Controls
At a glance
- What it is — How a monitor moves through its lifecycle in the console: the monitor rail, the gate on a waiting operation, backgrounding, cancelling, and expiry.
- When to use it — Managing an armed monitor or waiting operation from the console — deciding whether to keep a monitor watching, mark it satisfied, or drop it.
- Inputs — An armed, fired, expired, or cancelled ordinary monitor on the monitor rail; for a waiting operation, the gate's controls or a direct instruction to the operation.
- Outputs — A monitor state change (backgrounded, satisfied, cancelled, extended) and the operation resuming.
- Related objects — Monitors (modes and states), Signals (what a monitor watches).
- Common actions — For ordinary monitors: Run in background, Continue, Cancel, Extend, Send an instruction. Approval waits use their dedicated approval controls.
- API / tool links — UI only — no public API documented on this page.
The monitor rail
Each operation has a monitor rail listing its monitors as cards — name, mode, signal source, and state. Fired, expired, and cancelled monitors stay on the rail as a record of what the operation waited on; open a fired card to see its payload. Monitors from an abandoned branch drop off automatically.
A waiting operation
When an operation arms an ordinary blocking monitor it waits and shows as Waiting, with the monitor's gate above the message box:
- Run in background — keep the monitor watching in the background and resume the operation now.
- Continue — mark the wait satisfied and resume the operation now; the monitor no longer watches.
- Cancel — drop the monitor and resume.
- Extend — push out the time limit.
The operation also resumes on its own when an ordinary monitor fires or expires. Action and output-file approval waits use a separate approval surface and do not expire automatically. Resolve them with their approval controls, send a new instruction that supersedes them, or switch directly to Auto. Switching from Manual to Semi-Auto re-evaluates the action under the Semi-Auto policy and can ask for approval again.
Steering a waiting operation
You don't have to wait or cancel to redirect a waiting operation. Send it an instruction and Cracken resumes the operation with your instruction right away. Ordinary blocking monitors keep watching in the background. A pending action or output-file approval is cancelled because the new instruction supersedes it.
Background vs. cancel
For ordinary monitors:
| Action | Monitor | Operation |
|---|---|---|
| Background (send an instruction, or "Run in background") | Keeps watching; can still fire | Resumes now |
| Continue | Marked satisfied; does not fire later | Resumes now |
| Cancel | Dropped; never fires | Resumes now |
Background when the signal might still matter; cancel when it no longer does.
Expiry
If nothing arrives within an ordinary monitor's time limit it expires and the operation resumes, told the signal never came so it can move on. Extend the limit from the gate if you need longer. Action and output-file approval waits have no automatic expiry.