I can’t really understand the difference between

LocalRun

and

UniversalRun

- I’m configuring runs in Prefect Cloud interface, and they are running on one of a few agents, one per server. Each server has its own label for its Prefect agent (eg. Server1 has label

server1

) - when I configure the run on Prefect Cloud, I think (but I”m not 110% certain, I’ve been doing this too long today 😉 ) that when I specify

server1

label, it doesn’t matter whether I select the “local” or “universal” option - huh?

Hey @Cooper Marcus, Universal is the default if you don’t attach anything. Universal is not tied to a specific type of agent so it can be pickled up my Local, Docker, etc.

What does “local” even mean when I’m using Prefect Cloud?

Local means the agent lives on a local machine. Think as opposed to Kubernetes which is on a cluster. Local agent runs the job on the machine it’s hosted on.

ah, OK, so Local is referring to the location of the agent relative to the machine it is running on, I can get with that

A local agent on an EC2 machine runs the jobs on that said machine. But something like ECS agent and Kubernetes agent run the job on different compute

so in our arrangement, where we ONLY run agents with specific labels on specific machines, is there any real difference between local and universal?

Not particularly if it’s already working. The only different parameter is the

working_dir

where you can set the working directory the process is running from. Think import or loading specific files.

would my choice of working directory in the Prefect Cloud config page differ whether I selected Local or Universal when configuring a run in Prefect Cloud web UI?

You can’t select working dir in the Universal run because it’s not an option so it would be the location the agent is running on by default. Local gives you the flexibility

ah, got it, very nice, thanks!