Wait states
A wait state describes what an active process element instance is waiting for before it can continue, so you can tell expected waiting from a stalled instance.
What wait states show
When you inspect an active element, Camunda surfaces the wait state and its details. For example, the message a receive task expects or the due date of a timer.
Wait states remain a subset of active instances, not a new top-level state. Camunda surfaces this information at the element instance level.
Use wait states to:
- Distinguish healthy waiting from stalled execution: Determine whether an instance is waiting as designed or needs intervention.
- Detect worker availability issues early: See whether a job is waiting for activation or is already in progress, and for how long.
- Speed up troubleshooting: See what an instance is waiting for without digging into logs.
Supported wait state types
Camunda 8.10 tracks the following wait state types:
| Wait state type | Applies to | Details surfaced |
|---|---|---|
| Timer | Intermediate timer catch event | Due date, repetitions |
| Message | Intermediate message catch event, receive task | Message name, correlation key |
| Signal | Intermediate signal catch event | Signal name |
| Conditional | Intermediate conditional catch event | Condition expression, condition events (for example, variable create or update) |
| User task | User task | Task key, due date |
| Job | Service task, send task, script task, business rule task (when job-based), and execution and task listeners | Job key, job type, job kind, retries, and listenerEventType (populated only for listener-type jobs, otherwise null) |
Boundary events, event-based gateways, and parallel merging gateways are not tracked in 8.10.
Impact on secondary storage
When wait state tracking is active, Camunda writes a record to secondary storage for every applicable element instance.
Wait state tracking does not measurably increase secondary storage usage. You can configure wait state tracking in Camunda 8 Self-Managed to disable it.
Access control
To view wait states, you must have the relevant authorization:
| Authorization type | Resource type | Resource ID | Permission |
|---|---|---|---|
| View wait states for instances of a process definition | PROCESS_DEFINITION | A process definition ID or * for all process definitions. | READ_PROCESS_INSTANCE |
Wait state data is isolated by tenant. You can only view wait states for tenants you are authorized to access.