Tasks and the command line

Save repeatable work as tasks and run them on demand, on a schedule, in the background while MotionQL is closed, or from the command line. Scheduling is a Pro feature, included in the free Pro key.

Task kinds

Schedules

Run a task now, or schedule it:

• once at a given time;
• every N minutes, hours or days;
• daily, or weekly on chosen days;
• a cron expression.

Choose what happens to runs missed while MotionQL was closed or your computer was asleep: run once at start-up, or skip. The run log keeps each run's result: success, partial, failed or skipped, and how it started (manual, schedule, background or command line).

Every run respects the connection's read-only setting and is recorded in the run log and the audit log. Task definitions are stored encrypted.

Continuous sync

A continuous sync task picks up from where the previous run stopped, applies inserts, updates and replaces by _id, then keeps listening for the listen time (default 50 seconds, up to 1 hour). Schedule it every minute to keep a target collection current. Deletes are only applied when you turn them on. Copy existing documents copies the collection on the first run, and mask in flight masks fields before anything is written. The source must be a replica set or sharded cluster.

Run tasks while MotionQL is closed

By default tasks run only while MotionQL is open. Turn on Settings → Tasks → Run scheduled tasks when MotionQL is closed and MotionQL registers a per-user entry with your operating system that starts it without a window every 5 minutes while you're signed in to your computer:

Each start runs the tasks that are due and exits, so a task may start up to 5 minutes late. Turning the option off removes the entry.

Command line

The MotionQL program also has a command-line mode:

MotionQL --cli tasks list [--json]
MotionQL --cli tasks run <id|name> [--wait] [--json]
MotionQL --cli tasks export <id|name> > task.json
MotionQL --cli tasks import task.json [--confirm <name>] [--json]
MotionQL --cli version

MotionQL is the program itself: /Applications/MotionQL.app/Contents/MacOS/MotionQL on macOS, or MotionQL.exe in the install folder on Windows. Run MotionQL --cli install-cli once to install a short motionql-cli wrapper. On Windows, use the wrapper so the command waits and returns the exit code.

• tasks run starts the run in the background and returns; with --wait its exit code is the result.
• tasks export prints a task as JSON, without run history or secrets. tasks import creates a task from such a file; a destructive task needs --confirm <target name>.
• Output never contains passwords, keys or connection strings.
• If an app password is set, pass it in the MOTIONQL_APP_PASSWORD environment variable.