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Debug View

Inspect workflow execution tree and call-level details.

  • Execution Tree

    Navigate workflow structure with expandable nodes

  • Call Details

    View inputs, outputs, commands, and logs

  • Timeline Analysis

    Visualize task durations and identify bottlenecks

  • Resource Efficiency

    Analyze CPU, memory, and disk utilization

Requirement

Requires a working connection to your Cromwell server (set via --host or CROMWELL_HOST).

Quick Start

Press Enter on any workflow

pumbaa workflow debug <workflow-id>
Key Action
Up / Down Navigate tree
Right / Left Expand / Collapse
Enter Toggle expand
Tab Switch panel focus
Shift+E Expand all nodes
Shift+C Collapse all nodes
Y Copy to clipboard
A Chat with AI
Q Back / Quit

Quick Actions

Quick actions are context-sensitive and depend on the selected node type. Press number keys 1 to 6 to trigger actions.

Workflow / SubWorkflow Nodes

Key Action Description
1 Inputs Open modal with workflow inputs
2 Outputs Open modal with workflow outputs
3 Options View submitted workflow options
4 Timeline Open timeline modal (tasks sorted by duration)
5 Workflow Log Load and display workflow log

Task / Shard Nodes

Key Action Description
1 Inputs Open modal with task inputs
2 Outputs Open modal with task outputs
3 Command View executed command
4 Logs Switch to logs view (stdout/stderr/monitoring)
5 Efficiency Analyze resource usage (requires monitoring script)
6 AI Chat Open chat with selected context data

Copy to Clipboard

In modals, press Y to copy content to clipboard.

AI Chat Integration

Press 6 or A on a Task or Shard node to open the AI chat with task context.

Context Selection

Before starting the chat, you'll be prompted to select which data to include in the AI context:

Option Description
Metadata Task info, status, timing, command
Stderr Standard error output (last 200 lines)
Stdout Standard output (last 200 lines)
Monitoring Resource efficiency analysis
Batch Logs Google Batch logs (requires Google Batch backend)

Debugging Failed Tasks

When debugging a failed task, select Metadata + Stderr for the most relevant context. The AI can help interpret error messages and suggest fixes.

Selection Controls

Key Action
Up / Down Navigate options
Space Toggle selection
Enter Confirm and start chat
Esc Cancel

Timeline Analysis

Press 4 on a Workflow or SubWorkflow node to open the timeline modal.

The timeline shows:

  • Tasks sorted by duration (longest first)
  • Visual timeline bars showing when each task ran relative to workflow start
  • Time range for each task (start → end)
  • Status icons (✓ Done, ● Running, ✗ Failed, ↺ Preempted)

Subworkflow Timelines

Navigate to a subworkflow node and press 4 to see its specific timeline, separate from the parent workflow.

Resource Efficiency

Press 5 on a Task or Shard node to analyze resource utilization.

Requirement

This feature requires the monitoring script to be configured in Cromwell. See Resource Monitoring.

Displayed metrics:

Metric Description
CPU Peak and average usage vs. allocated cores
Memory Peak usage vs. allocated memory
Disk Peak usage vs. allocated disk space
Efficiency % Visual gauge showing utilization percentage

Cost Optimization

Low efficiency indicates over-provisioned resources. Consider reducing CPU/memory/disk allocations for tasks with < 50% efficiency.

Preemption Summary

For Workflow and SubWorkflow nodes running with preemptible instances, the details panel shows:

  • Cost Efficiency — Overall efficiency considering preemption overhead
  • Preemptible/Total Tasks — How many tasks used preemptible instances
  • Total Attempts — Including retries after preemptions
  • Total Preemptions — Number of times tasks were preempted

Problematic Tasks

Tasks with high preemption impact are highlighted:

  • Tasks with < 70% cost efficiency
  • Tasks where preemption caused > 10% cost overhead

Subworkflows

Preemption stats are calculated per-level. Navigate into subworkflows to see their individual preemption analysis.

Scatter/Shard Summary

For Call nodes with multiple shards (scatter operations), the panel shows:

  • Total Shards count
  • Status Breakdown — Done, Running, Failed, Preempted counts
  • Timing Statistics — Wall clock, min/max/avg per-shard duration

Expand the node to navigate individual shards.

See Also