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operation

operator and operation

An operator is a code module that provides a capability to perform an operation on a discoveryspace. For example the RandomWalk operator provides the capability to perform a random walk operation on a discoveryspace.

The operator defines the inputs arguments you can set for its operations.

The operators section contains more details about the available operators, what they do and how to use them. This page covers how you create and work with operations using a given operator in general.

Creating an operation resource

Pre-requisites

The only pre-requisite to creating an operation is that there is a suitable discoveryspace for it to work on.

Getting input options and potential values

You can get a default input options for an operation along with a description of its fields by executing 

ado template operation --operator-name $OPERATOR_NAME --include-schema

In addition, check the operator section for an entry for the particular $OPERATOR_NAME for more detail.

Info

The ado template operation command will always output the latest arguments schema for the operator. So use this if the online documentation does not seem to work as it may have fallen behind.

The operation configuration YAML

The configuration for all operations has three top-level fields 

spaces: # This list of spaces to operate on
 - space_abc123
operation: 
  module: # Describes the operator to use - more below
    ...
  parameters: # The input arguments for this operation
actuatorConfigurationIdentifiers: # Optional
  - actuatorconfiguration-name-123

Each operator has different input arguments. As a result the fields under operation.parameters of every operation will be different. To get an initial set of parameter values, use one of the following methods

  • Follow the previous section and use ado template operation
  • Check if there is an entry for the operator in the operator section of the documentation website.
  • Check the examples section to see if there is an example of using the given operator

For illustrative purposes here is a configuration for a random walk operation 

spaces: ###The spaces to operate on
  - 'space-630588-bfebfe' 
operation: #The operators
  module: # The operator will be RandomWalk
    moduleClass: RandomWalk
    moduleName: orchestrator.modules.operators.randomwalk
  parameters: # The parameters for this RandomWalk operation
    numberIterations: 60
    batchSize: 1
    mode: 'sequential'
    samplerType: 'generator'
actuatorConfigurationIdentifiers:
  - actuatorconfiguration-st4sd-3cb3bb82

Specifying the operator

The command ado get operators will list the names and types of the known operators e.g. 

      OPERATOR     TYPE
0  random_walk  explore
1     ray_tune  explore
You use this information to specify the operator to use in the operation YAML, for example:

module: 
  operatorName: random_walk # The name of the operator
  operationType: characterize #The type of the operation/operator

Passing actuator parameters

If you need to provide parameters to the actuators defined on the space, you can do it via the actuatorConfigurationIdentifiers field.

For example, the below shows an operation specifying an actuator configuration for the st4sd actuator. 

spaces: ###The spaces to operate on
  - 'space-630588-bfebfe' 
operation: #The operators
  ... # The operation config
actuatorConfigurationIdentifiers:
  - actuatorconfiguration-st4sd-3cb3bb82

The actuator configurations provided must belong to one of the actuators defined on the space(s) operated on and only one actuator configuration can be provided for each actuator. Both these conditions are checked on creating the operation resource and an appropriate error message is output if they are not.

Starting the operation

Executing 

ado create operation -f OPERATION.YAML
will create the operation resource in the active context and start performing whatever that operation does. The operation executes synchronously with this command i.e. it will not return until the operation is complete.

Before creating, and hence starting, the operation, the parameters will be validated with the operator. If they are not valid e.g. a required argument is missing, the create operation will fail with a relevant error.

Info

Although the create command does not exit until the operation is finished distributed users querying the same context will be able to see the created operation, from the moment it is created.

operation resource specific fields

operation resources have two additional top-level fields in addition to common ones described in resources These are (with example values):

operationType: characterize # The type of the operation: characterize, modify etc.
operatorIdentifier: profile-1.1 # The identifier of the operator including its version

Getting operation output

An operation can create any type of ado resource. To see the resources created by an operation with identifier $OPERATION_ID use: 

ado show related operation $OPERATION_ID
Output that is text, tables or locations will be contained in a datacontainer resource. It can be output with: 
ado describe datacontainer $DATACONTAINER_IDENTIFIER
See datacontainers for more details.

operation status update events

In addition to the status update events common to all resources operations define two more events: started and finished.

The finished event also has a custom field exit_state which described how the operation finished. It can be success, fail or error.

Here is an example of the status field of an operation resource after it has completed 

created: '2024-12-19T10:54:42.015388Z'
identifier: raytune-0.7.5.dev10+g731d1e21.d20241218-ax-018647
kind: operation
metadata:
  entities_submitted: 11
  experiments_requested: 11
operationType: search
operatorIdentifier: raytune-0.7.5.dev10+g731d1e21.d20241218
status:
- event: created
  recorded_at: '2025-09-02T09:09:02.187149Z'
- event: added
  recorded_at: '2025-09-02T09:09:15.187747Z'
- event: started
  recorded_at: '2025-09-02T09:09:15.190337Z'
- event: updated
  recorded_at: '2025-09-02T09:09:15.190383Z'
- event: finished
  exit_state: success
  message: Ray Tune operation completed successfully
  recorded_at: '2025-09-02T09:11:28.047676Z'
- event: updated
  recorded_at: '2025-09-02T09:11:29.096685Z'
version: v1

Note

The first updated status reflects an update to the stored operation resource which added the started event. The second updated status reflects an update to the stored operation resource which added the finished event.

Deleting operations

Info

Please note that standard deletion constraints apply alongside the considerations discussed in this section.

Warning

Deleting an operation that uses the replay actuator will also remove the original measurements from the database, making it impossible for it to be run again on the same sample store.

Deleting an operation is a destructive action that also removes associated data. The deletion process follows this logic:

  • Requests associated with the operation are deleted if their results are not referenced by other operations
  • Results are deleted only if they are no longer referenced by any remaining requests.

This means that if a measurement result has been reused (e.g., replayed) in another operation, it will not be deleted.

Restrictions

By default, operations cannot be deleted while other operations are still running. This safeguard prevents potential consistency issues, such as deleting results that are actively being replayed in a running operation.

To override this restriction, you can use the --force option, which allows deletion even when other operations are in progress.