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Once a workload is deployed, these are the commands for day-to-day operation: restarting instances, watching a rollout progress, and drilling into a single instance when something isn’t right.

Restarting

datumctl compute restart triggers a rolling restart — instances are replaced without changing the image or configuration, useful for picking up an external change like a secret rotation:

Watching a rollout

Any change that replaces instances — a deploy with a new image, or a restart — starts a rollout. datumctl compute rollout attaches to it and prints progress per placement and city as it happens:
Each row moves through phases — Pending, Updating, Done — until every placement finishes. If a placement stalls for more than 30 seconds without progress, its phase becomes Blocked and the command prints the reason (a quota limit, a scheduling issue) reported by the platform.
Ctrl-C detaches from the watch; it never cancels the rollout. Re-run datumctl compute rollout api at any time to reattach and see current progress.

Inspecting instances

datumctl compute instances lists every instance in the project — one row per running (or attempting-to-run) copy of a workload’s container in a specific city:
Status reflects availability, not just whether a process happens to be running at this instant — an instance blocked on quota shows Pending (quota exceeded) rather than a generic “not ready.” Add -o wide for the underlying instance type alongside the default columns, or -o json/-o yaml for the full resource. For everything about a single instance — runtime configuration, environment, network addresses, and a plain-English explanation of any failure — use describe:
When an instance can’t start because of quota, describe also prints the exact next commands to run — typically checking datumctl compute quota.

Next steps

  • datumctl compute restart --help, rollout --help, and instances --help for the full flag reference.
  • Deploying workloads — the deploy and workloads commands that create what you’re operating on here.
  • Destroying workloads — remove a workload and every instance it created.
Last modified on September 2, 2026