System operations - Neon Docs

An operation is an action performed by the Neon Control Plane on a Neon object or resource. Operations are typically initiated by user actions, such as creating a branch or deleting a database. Other operations may be initiated by the Neon Control Plane, such as suspending a compute after a period of inactivity or checking its availability. You can monitor operations to keep an eye on the overall health of your Neon project or to check the status of specific operations. When working with the Neon API, you can poll the status of operations to ensure that an API request is completed before issuing the next API request. For more information, see Poll operation status.

Operation	Description
`Apply config`	Applies a new configuration to a Neon object or resource. For example, changing compute settings or creating, deleting, or updating Postgres users and databases initiates this operation.
`Apply storage config`	Applies a new configuration to a Neon storage object or resource. For example, updating the history retention period for a project initiates this operation.
`Check availability`	Checks the availability of data in a branch and that a compute can start on a branch. Branches without a compute are not checked. This operation, performed by the availability checker, is a periodic load generated by the Control Plane.
`Create branch`	Creates a branch in a Neon project. For related information, see Manage branches.
`Create timelime`	Sets up storage and creates the default branch when a Neon project is created.
`Delete tenant`	Deletes stored data when a Neon project is deleted.
`Start compute`	Starts a compute when there is an event or action that requires compute resources. For example, connecting to a suspended compute initiates this operation.
`Suspend compute`	Suspends a compute after a period of inactivity. For information about how Neon manages compute resources, see Compute lifecycle.
`Tenant attach`	Attaches a Neon project to storage.
`Tenant detach`	Detaches a Neon project from storage after the project as been idle for 30 days.
`Tenant reattach`	Reattaches a detached Neon project to storage when a detached project receives a request.
`Timeline archive`	The time when a branch archive operation was initiated.
`Timeline unarchive`	The time when the branch unarchive operation was initiated.

View operations

You can view system operations via the Neon Console, Neon CLI, or Neon API.

Operations and the Neon API

This section describes how to work with operations using the Neon API. The following topics are covered:

List operations: Describes how to list all operations for a Neon project.
List operations with pagination: Describes how to list all operations for a Neon project and paginate the response.
Get operation: Describes how to retrieve the details for a specific operation by the operation ID.
Poll operation status: Describes how to poll an operation for its status, which may be necessary to avoid failed requests due to in-progress operations when using the Neon API programmatically.

note

Operation names have underscores when view using the API; for example:

List operations

Lists operations for the specified project. This method supports response pagination. For more information, see List operations with pagination.

/projects/{project_id}/operations

cURL command:

curl 'https://console.neon.tech/api/v2/projects/autumn-disk-484331/operations' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEON_API_KEY"

Response body

{
  "operations": [
    {
      "id": "97c7a650-e4ff-43d7-8c58-4c67f5050167",
      "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
      "branch_id": "br-wispy-dew-591433",
      "endpoint_id": "ep-orange-art-714542",
      "action": "check_availability",
      "status": "finished",
      "failures_count": 0,
      "created_at": "2022-12-09T08:47:52Z",
      "updated_at": "2022-12-09T08:47:56Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "0f3daf10-2544-425c-86d3-9a9932ab25b9",
      "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
      "branch_id": "br-wispy-dew-591433",
      "endpoint_id": "ep-orange-art-714542",
      "action": "check_availability",
      "status": "finished",
      "failures_count": 0,
      "created_at": "2022-12-09T04:47:39Z",
      "updated_at": "2022-12-09T04:47:44Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "fb8484df-51b4-4a40-b0fc-97b73998892b",
      "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
      "branch_id": "br-wispy-dew-591433",
      "endpoint_id": "ep-orange-art-714542",
      "action": "check_availability",
      "status": "finished",
      "failures_count": 0,
      "created_at": "2022-12-09T02:47:05Z",
      "updated_at": "2022-12-09T02:47:09Z"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "cursor": "2022-12-07T00:45:05.262011Z"
  }
}

List operations with pagination

Pagination allows you to limit the number of operations displayed, as the number of operations for a project can be large. To paginate responses, issue an initial request with a limit value. For brevity, the limit is set to 1 in the following example.

cURL command:

curl 'https://console.neon.tech/api/v2/projects/autumn-disk-484331/operations?limit=1' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEON_API_KEY"

Response body

{
  "operations": [
    {
      "id": "97c7a650-e4ff-43d7-8c58-4c67f5050167",
      "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
      "branch_id": "br-wispy-dew-591433",
      "endpoint_id": "ep-orange-art-714542",
      "action": "check_availability",
      "status": "finished",
      "failures_count": 0,
      "created_at": "2022-12-09T08:47:52Z",
      "updated_at": "2022-12-09T08:47:56Z"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "cursor": "2022-12-09T08:47:52.20417Z"
  }
}

To list the next page of operations, add the cursor value returned in the response body of the previous request and a limit value for the next page.

curl 'https://console.neon.tech/api/v2/projects/autumn-disk-484331/operations?cursor=2022-12-09T08%3A47%3A52.20417Z&limit=1' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEON_API_KEY"

Response body

{
  "operations": [
    {
      "id": "0f3daf10-2544-425c-86d3-9a9932ab25b9",
      "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
      "branch_id": "br-wispy-dew-591433",
      "endpoint_id": "ep-orange-art-714542",
      "action": "check_availability",
      "status": "finished",
      "failures_count": 0,
      "created_at": "2022-12-09T04:47:39Z",
      "updated_at": "2022-12-09T04:47:44Z"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "cursor": "2022-12-09T04:47:39.797163Z"
  }
}

Get operation

This method shows only the details for the specified operation ID.

/projects/{project_id}/operations/{operation_id}

cURL command:

curl 'https://console.neon.tech/api/v2/projects/autumn-disk-484331/operations/97c7a650-e4ff-43d7-8c58-4c67f5050167' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEON_API_KEY"

Response body

{
  "operation": {
    "id": "97c7a650-e4ff-43d7-8c58-4c67f5050167",
    "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
    "branch_id": "br-wispy-dew-591433",
    "endpoint_id": "ep-orange-art-714542",
    "action": "check_availability",
    "status": "finished",
    "failures_count": 0,
    "created_at": "2022-12-09T08:47:52Z",
    "updated_at": "2022-12-09T08:47:56Z"
  }
}

Poll operation status

Some Neon API requests may take a few moments to complete. When using the Neon API programmatically, you can check the status of an operation before proceeding with the next API request. For example, you may want to check the operation status of a create branch request before issuing a create database request for that branch.

The response to a Neon API request includes information about the operations that were initiated. For example, a create branch request initiates create_branch and start_compute operations.

"operations": [
    {
      "id": "22acbb37-209b-4b90-a39c-8460090e1329",
      "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
      "branch_id": "br-dawn-scene-747675",
      "action": "create_branch",
      "status": "running",
      "failures_count": 0,
      "created_at": "2022-12-08T19:55:43Z",
      "updated_at": "2022-12-08T19:55:43Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "055b17e6-ffe3-47ab-b545-cfd7db6fd8b8",
      "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
      "branch_id": "br-dawn-scene-747675",
      "endpoint_id": "ep-small-bush-675287",
      "action": "start_compute",
      "status": "scheduling",
      "failures_count": 0,
      "created_at": "2022-12-08T19:55:43Z",
      "updated_at": "2022-12-08T19:55:43Z"
    }
  ]

You can use the Get operation details method to poll the status of an operation by the operation ID. You might do this at intervals of 5 seconds until the status of the operation changes to finished before issuing the next request. For example, this request polls the start_compute operation shown above:

curl 'https://console.neon.tech/api/v2/projects/autumn-disk-484331/operations/055b17e6-ffe3-47ab-b545-cfd7db6fd8b8' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEON_API_KEY"

Response body

{
  "operation": {
    "id": "055b17e6-ffe3-47ab-b545-cfd7db6fd8b8",
    "project_id": "autumn-disk-484331",
    "branch_id": "br-dawn-scene-747675",
    "endpoint_id": "ep-small-bush-675287",
    "action": "start_compute",
    "status": "finished",
    "failures_count": 0,
    "created_at": "2022-12-08T19:55:43Z",
    "updated_at": "2022-12-08T19:55:43Z"
  }
}

Possible operation status values include running, finished, failed, scheduling. Initially, the status of an operation might be scheduling. Before issuing the next API request, you would poll the operation until the status changes to finished. You could also add logic to handle a failed status.

Need help?

Join our Discord Server to ask questions or see what others are doing with Neon. Users on paid plans can open a support ticket from the console. For more details, see Getting Support.