Run without secondary storage

Use no secondary storage mode to run Zeebe clusters with only the process engine and its primary storage layer.

warning

Disabling secondary storage removes key Camunda 8 capabilities, including Operate, Tasklist, and search-based REST endpoints. This mode is suitable only for lightweight development, testing, or specialized technical use cases.

About this mode

Typically, you should use secondary storage in nearly all production environments to enable monitoring, analytics, querying, and human-task management through Operate, Tasklist, and other applications.

You should only disable/run without secondary storage in limited scenarios, such as lightweight development environments, specialized technical use cases, or resource-constrained deployments.

• In this mode, Operate, Tasklist, Identity, and web-based APIs are automatically disabled.
• For Helm deployments, Optimize is also disabled by default when secondary storage is not configured.
• For Docker or manual deployments, you must explicitly disable Optimize in your configuration, as it cannot function without secondary storage.

This setup provides core process execution and orchestration capabilities through Zeebe, but excludes the full Camunda platform experience, such as analytics, search, and human-task management.

Enable no secondary storage mode

You can enable this mode in several ways depending on your deployment method.

Helm

To disable secondary storage in Helm-based installations, set the following flag in your values.yaml file:

global:
  noSecondaryStorage: true

When this value is set, the Helm charts automatically disable all components that depend on secondary storage.

Camunda 8 Run or manual

To disable secondary storage in Camunda 8 Run or other manual setups, set the following property in your configuration file:

spring:
  profiles:
    active: broker,standalone

camunda:
  data:
    secondary-storage:
      type: none

Or use environment variables:

SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=broker,standalone
CAMUNDA_DATA_SECONDARYSTORAGE_TYPE=none

If brokers and gateways run separately, apply the same configuration for gateways:

spring:
  profiles:
    active: gateway,standalone

camunda:
  data:
    secondary-storage:
      type: none

SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=gateway,standalone
CAMUNDA_DATA_SECONDARYSTORAGE_TYPE=none

Docker Compose

In a Docker Compose setup, you can disable secondary storage by setting the following environment variable for the relevant service:

environment:
  - CAMUNDA_DATA_SECONDARYSTORAGE_TYPE=none

Components and features disabled

If secondary storage is disabled, the following components and features are unavailable:

Category	Component or feature	Behavior
Web applications	Operate, Tasklist, Identity UI, Optimize, Play (Modeler Play tab)	Disabled
APIs & services	Orchestration Cluster REST API (search endpoints), batch operations, usage metrics	Return 403 Forbidden
Data & storage	Elasticsearch/OpenSearch exporters, Schema Manager, secondary storage backups	Disabled

note

• Outbound connectors remain supported. However, inbound connectors and any features that require process definition lookup are unavailable.
• Custom exporters (for example, Kafka, Prometheus, or MongoDB) continue to work as they interact directly with the engine’s primary storage.

Error handling and API responses

If you attempt to access a disabled feature, the system returns a descriptive error response.

For example:

{
  "status": 403,
  "detail": "This endpoint requires secondary storage, but none is set. Configure it using the 'camunda.data.secondary-storage.type' property.",
  "instance": "/v2/decision-instances/search"
}

• At startup, affected components log a warning and shut down gracefully.
• SDKs and clients will also return a 403 Forbidden error when interacting with unsupported endpoints.

Limitations and considerations

Using this mode significantly reduces Camunda’s capabilities:

Limitation	Impact
No visual monitoring	Operate and Tasklist are unavailable.
No historical data or analytics	Optimize, dashboards, and audit records cannot be accessed.
Limited API access	Most search and query endpoints return 403 Forbidden.
Reduced observability	Built-in metrics and secondary storage exporters are disabled.
No human task management	Tasklist and identity-based task assignment are unavailable.

note

You can still deploy and execute BPMN and DMN processes using the Zeebe client or REST API endpoints that only rely on the engine.

When to use this mode

caution

Before using this mode in production, consult your Camunda support or field team to ensure it meets your requirements.

Use this mode only in limited, specialized scenarios, such as the following:

Scenario	Description
Local development with Camunda 8 Run	Run Zeebe locally without secondary storage components for lightweight testing and iteration.
Resource-constrained environments	Deploy only the Zeebe engine when secondary storage or web applications cannot be supported.
Temporary migration or diagnostic scenarios	Minimal orchestration functionality during transition or troubleshooting.
Custom monitoring or exporter development	Use custom exporters or external observability tools instead of secondary storage.