Sleep, Sleep Until & Wait for Event

Durable pausing is one of the most powerful features of Cloudflare Workflows. A workflow can sleep for days or weeks without consuming compute resources. When the sleep expires, execution resumes exactly where it left off.

Sleep

The Sleep node pauses execution for a fixed duration.

Configuration

Field	Type	Example
Duration	string (duration)	30 seconds, 5 minutes, 2 hours, 7 days

Generated code

await step.sleep('Wait 24 hours', '24 hours')

Duration strings accept: seconds, minutes, hours, days.

Sleep Until

The Sleep Until node pauses until a specific timestamp.

Configuration

Field	Type	Example
Timestamp	string (ISO 8601)	2026-01-15T09:00:00Z

The timestamp can be a static value or an expression referencing an upstream step output:

{{parse_schedule.scheduledAt}}

Generated code

await step.sleepUntil('Wait until scheduled', new Date('2026-01-15T09:00:00Z'))

TIP

Use an upstream Step node to compute the target date dynamically. For example, calculate "3 days from now" and return it as an ISO string, then reference it in Sleep Until.

Wait for Event

The Wait for Event node pauses execution until an external event is delivered to the workflow instance. This is the primary mechanism for human-in-the-loop flows.

Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Description
Event Type	string	Yes	Identifier for the event to wait for
Timeout	string (duration)	No	Maximum time to wait before timing out

Generated code

const approval_gate = await step.waitForEvent('Wait for approval', {
  type: 'approval-decision',
  timeout: '72 hours',
})

The event payload is returned as the step result. Downstream steps can reference approval_gate.approved, approval_gate.comments, etc.

Sending events to a waiting workflow

Use the trigger endpoint or the Cloudflare Workflows API to deliver an event to a specific instance:

curl -X POST https://app.awaitstep.dev/api/workflows/<id>/trigger \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ask_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "connectionId": "<connection-id>",
    "params": {
      "instanceId": "<run-id>",
      "eventType": "approval-decision",
      "payload": { "approved": true, "comments": "Looks good" }
    }
  }'

INFO

If the timeout expires before an event arrives, step.waitForEvent throws a timeout error. Use a Try/Catch node to handle this case gracefully.

Durability guarantees

All three pause primitives are fully durable. If the Cloudflare Worker is evicted or the region experiences an outage while a workflow is paused, the workflow automatically resumes when execution is next scheduled. No state is lost.