(mail-page)=
This page documents how to handle workflow events and send notifications.
(workflow-handlers)=
(metadata-completion-handler)=
Due to the asynchronous nature of Nextflow the termination of a script does not correspond to the termination of the running workflow. Thus some information, only available on execution completion, needs to be accessed by using an asynchronous handler.
The onComplete
event handler is invoked by the framework when the workflow execution is completed. It allows one to access the workflow termination status and other useful information. For example:
workflow.onComplete {
println "Pipeline completed at: $workflow.complete"
println "Execution status: ${ workflow.success ? 'OK' : 'failed' }"
}
(metadata-error-handler)=
The onError
event handler is invoked by Nextflow when a runtime or process error caused the pipeline execution to stop. For example:
workflow.onError {
println "Error: Pipeline execution stopped with the following message: ${workflow.errorMessage}"
}
:::{note}
Both the onError
and onComplete
handlers are invoked when an error condition is encountered. The first is called as soon as the error is raised, while the second is called just before the pipeline execution is about to terminate. When using the finish
{ref}process-error-strategy
, there may be a significant gap between the two, depending on the time required to complete any pending job.
:::
The built-in function sendMail
allows you to send a mail message from a workflow script.
(mail-basic)=
The mail attributes are specified as named parameters or an equivalent map. For example:
sendMail(
to: '[email protected]',
subject: 'Catch up',
body: 'Hi, how are you!',
attach: '/some/path/attachment/file.txt'
)
which is equivalent to:
mail = [
to: '[email protected]',
subject: 'Catch up',
body: 'Hi, how are you!',
attach: '/some/path/attachment/file.txt'
]
sendMail(mail)
The following parameters can be specified:
to
: Multiple email addresses can be specified separating them with a comma.
: The mail target recipients.
cc
: Multiple email addresses can be specified separating them with a comma.
: The mail CC recipients.
bcc
: Multiple email addresses can be specified separating them with a comma.
: The mail BCC recipients.
from
: Multiple email addresses can be specified separating them with a comma.
: The mail sender address.
subject
: The mail subject.
charset
: The mail content charset (default: UTF-8
).
text
: The mail plain text content.
body
: The mail body content. It can be either plain text or HTML content.
type
: The mail body mime type. If not specified it's automatically detected.
attach
: Single file or a list of files to be included as mail attachments.
(mail-advanced)=
Another version of sendMail
allows a more idiomatic syntax:
sendMail {
to '[email protected]'
from '[email protected]'
attach '/some/path/attachment/file.txt'
attach '/other/path/image.png'
subject 'Catch up'
'''
Hi there,
Look! Multi-lines
mail content!
'''
}
The same attributes listed in the table in the previous section are allowed.
:::{tip}
A string expression at the end is implicitly interpreted as the mail body content, therefore the body
parameter can be omitted as shown above.
:::
:::{tip}
To send an email that includes text and HTML content, use both the text
and body
attributes. The first is used for the plain text content, while the second is used for the rich HTML content.
:::
(mail-attachments)=
When using the curly brackets syntax, the attach
parameter can be repeated two or more times to include multiple attachments in the mail message.
Moreover for each attachment it's possible to specify any of the following options:
contentId
: Defines the Content-ID
header field for the attachment.
disposition
: Defines the Content-Disposition
header field for the attachment.
fileName
: Defines the filename
parameter of the Content-Disposition
header field.
description
: Defines the Content-Description
header field for the attachment.
For example:
sendMail {
to '[email protected]'
attach '/some/file.txt', fileName: 'manuscript.txt'
attach '/other/image.png', disposition: 'inline'
subject 'Sending documents'
'''
the mail body
'''
}
(mail-config)=
If no mail server configuration is provided, Nextflow tries to send the email by using the external mail command eventually provided by the underlying system (e.g. sendmail
or mail
).
If your system does not provide access to none of the above you can configure a SMTP server in the nextflow.config
file. For example:
mail {
smtp.host = 'your.smtp-server.com'
smtp.port = 475
smtp.user = 'my-user'
}
See the {ref}mail scope <config-mail>
section to learn more the mail server configuration options.
:::{versionadded} 23.06.0-edge :::
Nextflow supports AWS SES native API as an alternative provider to send emails in place of SMTP server.
To enable this feature add the following environment variable in the launching environment:
export NXF_ENABLE_AWS_SES=true
Make also sure to add the following AWS IAM permission to the AWS user (or role) used to launch the pipeline execution:
ses:SendRawEmail
You can use the sendMail
function with a {ref}workflow completion handler <metadata-completion-handler>
to notify the completion of a workflow completion. For example:
workflow.onComplete {
def msg = """\
Pipeline execution summary
---------------------------
Completed at: ${workflow.complete}
Duration : ${workflow.duration}
Success : ${workflow.success}
workDir : ${workflow.workDir}
exit status : ${workflow.exitStatus}
"""
.stripIndent()
sendMail(to: '[email protected]', subject: 'My pipeline execution', body: msg)
}
This is useful to send a custom notification message. Note however that Nextflow includes a built-in notification mechanism which is the most convenient way to notify the completion of a workflow execution in most cases. Read the following section to learn about it.
Nextflow includes a built-in workflow notification features that automatically sends a notification message when a workflow execution terminates.
To enable simply specify the -N
option when launching the pipeline execution. For example:
nextflow run <pipeline name> -N <recipient address>
It will send a notification mail when the execution completes similar to the one shown below:
:::{warning}
By default the notification message is sent with the sendmail
system tool, which is assumed to be available in the environment where Nextflow is running. Make sure it's properly installed and configured. Alternatively, you can provide the SMTP server configuration settings to use the Nextflow built-in mail support, which doesn't require any external system tool.
:::
See the Mail configuration section to learn about the available mail delivery options and configuration settings.
Read {ref}Notification scope <config-notification>
section to learn more about the workflow notification configuration details.