Generate

Produces events on a schedule. Source task — typically first in a flow.

Configuration

- generate:
    name: ticker
    interval: "5s"

Field	Type	Default	Description
`name`	string	required	Task name.
`payload`	object		Structured data to include in each event. `system_info` is added only when the payload is an object.
`interval`	duration		Interval schedule (e.g., `500ms`, `5s`, `1m`). The first run fires one interval after the flow first starts, and each next one an interval after the previous attempt, failed or not. A restart keeps that schedule, so a flow restarted more often than its interval still runs, and never more often. Maximum `100y`. Mutually exclusive with `cron`.
`cron`	string		Cron expression, validated at startup. Mutually exclusive with `interval`.
`timezone`	string	`UTC`	IANA timezone for cron evaluation (e.g., `Europe/London`), validated at startup.
`count`	int		Max events to generate. Runs indefinitely if omitted.
`allow_rerun`	bool	false	Reset the counter on restart.
`ack_timeout`	duration	wait indefinitely	Max time to wait for flow completion before the next scheduled run. A run that fails or times out is not recorded as completed: `interval` and `cron` schedules fire again at the next scheduled time, and run-once mode retries with the task’s retry backoff.
`depends_on`	list		Upstream task names.
`retry`	object		Retry configuration.

Format: JSON. Includes user-defined payload fields (if configured) plus system info.

Field	Type	Description
`system_info.last_run_time`	int	Unix timestamp (seconds) of the current run.
`system_info.next_run_time`	int / null	Unix timestamp (seconds) of the next scheduled run.

Interval with payload:

- generate:
    name: heartbeat
    interval: "1m"
    payload:
      type: heartbeat
      source: flowgen

Cron schedule:

- generate:
    name: daily_trigger
    cron: "0 2 * * *"
    timezone: "America/New_York"

Run once:

- generate:
    name: init
    interval: "1s"
    count: 1