Errors and cleanup

By default, a failed command stops its task. Use ignore_error when a failure can be tolerated, and defer for cleanup that must run after work finishes. For concurrent dependencies, see fail-fast behavior.

Clean up after a task

Schedule a cleanup command with defer. Once Task reaches that entry in cmds, it registers the command to run when the task finishes, including if a later command fails. Deferred commands run in reverse order of registration. A defer that Task never reaches is not registered, for example when an earlier command or a dependency fails.

In this example, Task removes tmpdir/ after the work command finishes:

version: '3'

tasks:
  default:
    cmds:
      - mkdir -p tmpdir/
      - defer: rm -rf tmpdir/
      - echo 'Work completed' > tmpdir/result.txt

Run task, then check that tmpdir/ was removed. Replace the last command with exit 1 to try the failure path: cleanup still runs and Task reports the failure. The directory name here is for the example; choose a task-specific path for real work.

Reuse a cleanup task

Use a deferred task call when several tasks share the same cleanup:

version: '3'

tasks:
  default:
    cmds:
      - mkdir -p tmpdir/
      - defer: { task: cleanup }
      - echo 'Work completed' > tmpdir/result.txt

  cleanup: rm -rf tmpdir/

Inspect a failed command

A special variable .EXIT_CODE is exposed when a command exited with a non-zero exit code. You can check its presence to know if the task completed successfully or not:

version: '3'

tasks:
  default:
    cmds:
      - defer:
          echo '{{if .EXIT_CODE}}Failed with
          {{.EXIT_CODE}}!{{else}}Success!{{end}}'
      - exit 1

Continue after an error

Set ignore_error: true on a command to continue after it fails:

version: '3'

tasks:
  example:
    cmds:
      - cmd: exit 1
        ignore_error: true
      - echo "Continuing after the failed command"

Without ignore_error, the echo command would not run.

You can also set ignore_error on a task to apply it to that task's commands. The setting does not propagate to other tasks called through cmds or deps.