A2A · TASK CONTROL ROOM

Task lifecycle: identity and terminal immutability

Interrupt a task, supply what it needs, and follow the actual state and artifact changes.

Task state
Work completed

Your experiment

Complete a task, then create a follow-up. Verify that contextId is retained but taskId and artifact identity change. A completed task does not restart.

Use Step to inspect a transition. The simulation pauses when it needs input or authorization; supply the requested action, then Play to resume.

Final artifact

State and action trace

Offline task-state teaching model, not an A2A server. Work units and active-time durations are illustrative. Waiting is excluded from active time; the view is deliberately paused during interruptions. Input/auth interruptions can resume the same task. Completed, failed, canceled and rejected tasks are terminal; follow-ups use a new task ID. Cancellation acceptance is a model switch, not a universal server guarantee. No credentials, external services or real artifacts are used. Official task lifecycle reference.

Preserve identity across the right boundary

Run without interruption or failure and inspect the completed artifact. The task cannot be restarted as active through a task action after completion. New follow-up task creates task-2 inside context-demo and eventually artifact-2, whereas Restart experiment resets the entire teaching fixture to its opening identity. Those are deliberately different controls. Use recorded history to inspect earlier states, but remember that branching history is a local experiment operation, not permission for a production client to rewrite an immutable terminal task.

Configure a fresh task

Work units chooses the amount of illustrative work. Seconds per unit controls active processing duration, not real compute performance. Require input before unit and Require authorization before unit select different interruption gates; zero disables a gate, and a number above the work-unit count is never reached. Fail during unit makes that unit terminally fail without counting it as completed. Reject before execution refuses the submitted task before any work. Every configuration change creates a fresh experiment rather than editing the existing task in place.

Act on the current state

Supply clarification is enabled only for input-required; Authorize is enabled only for auth-required. Neither button supplies the other missing condition. Request cancellation asks the simulated worker to stop. Worker accepts cancellation controls whether it agrees; refusal leaves work active. A cancelled task has no final artifact even if some units finished. New follow-up task is available only after a terminal state and creates a new task identifier within the same context. Completed, failed, canceled and rejected are terminal; the control does not resume them.

Inspect time, identity and history

Play scales the configured active path to a minute of inspection. Waiting for clarification or authorization pauses progress and requires an explicit action before Play resumes. Pause holds the view; Step advances one active second, not one inspection second. Restart experiment resets the current configuration. Speed changes playback rate without changing task logic. Recorded state seeks through states already visited; resuming an earlier state discards its later branch. Follow-up begins a separate history. Inspect the task ID, context ID, completed units, final artifact and action trace together. This in-memory state machine has no durable checkpoint, remote worker, real authorization credential, network reconnect or external side effect.

Views are my own and do not represent any employer, past or present.

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