Manage Deployment schedules

Learn how to pause, resume, and remove deployment schedules using the Prefect CLI.

You can pause and resume deployment schedules individually or in bulk. This can be useful for maintenance windows, migration scenarios, or organizational changes.

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Prerequisites

To manage deployment schedules, you need:

• A Prefect server or Prefect Cloud workspace
• One or more deployments with schedules
• Prefect installed

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Manage specific schedules

To pause or resume individual deployment schedules, you need the deployment name and schedule ID.

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List schedules for a deployment

First, list the schedules to get the schedule ID:

prefect deployment schedule ls my-flow/my-deployment

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Pause a specific schedule

prefect deployment schedule pause my-flow/my-deployment <schedule-id>

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Resume a specific schedule

prefect deployment schedule resume my-flow/my-deployment <schedule-id>

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Manage schedules in bulk

When you have many deployments with active schedules, you can pause or resume all of them at once using the --all flag.

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Pause all schedules

Use the --all flag with the pause command to pause all active schedules across all deployments:

prefect deployment schedule pause --all

This command pauses all active schedules across deployments in the current workspace. In interactive mode, you’ll be asked to confirm.

Example output:

Paused schedule for deployment my-flow/daily-sync
Paused schedule for deployment data-pipeline/hourly-update
Paused schedule for deployment ml-model/weekly-training
Paused 3 deployment schedule(s).

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Resume all schedules

Similarly, use the --all flag with the resume command to resume all paused schedules:

prefect deployment schedule resume --all

This command resumes all paused schedules across deployments in the current workspace. In interactive mode, you’ll be asked to confirm.

Example output:

Resumed schedule for deployment my-flow/daily-sync
Resumed schedule for deployment data-pipeline/hourly-update
Resumed schedule for deployment ml-model/weekly-training
Resumed 3 deployment schedule(s).

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Skip confirmation prompt

To skip the interactive confirmation (useful for CI/CD pipelines or scripts), use the --no-prompt flag:

prefect --no-prompt deployment schedule pause --all
prefect --no-prompt deployment schedule resume --all

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Remove all schedules from a deployment

To remove all schedules from a deployment, use prefect deployment schedule clear:

prefect deployment schedule clear my-flow/my-deployment

You will be prompted to confirm before schedules are removed.

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Skip the confirmation prompt

To skip the confirmation prompt (useful in scripts or CI pipelines), pass the -y flag:

prefect deployment schedule clear my-flow/my-deployment -y

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Use cases

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Maintenance windows

Pause all schedules during system maintenance:

# Before maintenance
prefect deployment schedule pause --all

# Perform maintenance tasks...

# After maintenance
prefect deployment schedule resume --all

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Development environment management

Quickly pause all schedules in a development environment:

# Pause all dev schedules
prefect --profile dev deployment schedule pause --all

# Resume when ready
prefect --profile dev deployment schedule resume --all

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Important notes

Use caution with bulk operations

The --all flag affects all deployment schedules in your workspace. In interactive mode, you’ll be prompted to confirm the operation showing the exact number of schedules that will be affected. Always verify you’re in the correct workspace/profile before running bulk operations.

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See also

• Create schedules - Learn how to create schedules for your deployments
• Run deployments - Learn how to trigger deployment runs manually
• Deployment concepts - Understand deployments and their schedules