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HPC Job Dependency

SLURM allows jobs to depend on the status of prior jobs, which enabling simple pipelines without manual intervention.


Dependencies that can be used for <type>:<previous_job_id>

Type Description
after This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have begun execution
afterany This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have terminated.
aftercorr A task of this job array can begin execution after the corresponding task ID in the specified job has completed successfully
afternotok This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have terminated in some failed state
afterok This job can begin execution after the specified jobs have successfully executed
singleton This job can begin execution after any previously launched jobs sharing the same job name and user have terminated

Job that only runs after successful completion of the first job as follows where we set the “afterok” as the dependency type

$ sbatch --dependency=afterok:<previous_job_id> <job_script>.sh

If the job requires more than one job to be completed before it is executed, you can supply all the jobids using , separator

$ sbatch --dependency=<type>:<previous_job_id>,<previous_job_id>,<previous_job_id> <job_script>.sh

You can also set the job to run if any one of the job ids completes successfully using a ? Separator

$ sbatch --dependency=<type>:<previous_job_id>?,<previous_job_id>?,<previous_job_id>? <job_script>.sh