I am using prefect2.0. I have the following flow that I run in a docker infrastructure.

@flow
def my_flow():
    return "hola"

Using the OrionClient I am able to read the states of a flow run using

orion_client.read_flow_run_states(flow_run_id)

. The last state is

COMPLETED

and has a

data

attribute that is NOT

None

. For example the data attribute value is:

state.data = _Result(key='b1fd11041ae54cfcbb9b41ec938ff0cf', filesystem_document_id=UUID('bd1ed851-82d2-4f87-b11c-be04a80634af'))

What does this represents? Why don't I have

state.data = "hola"

instead? How do I get my flow return data from the OrionClient? Thanks a lot!

Hi! We don’t store your data in the database. Instead, we store a reference to the file system it was persisted to and a key that identifies that unique result. We have a utility at

prefect.results._retrieve_result

that retrieves the result for a given state. In the near future, we will allow you to configure different file systems to persist results to (currently it is always local to the flow run, so its in your container’s file syste) and update the

State.result()

method to automatically pull from that location.

has my orion_client is outside the container and the flow_run has completed (thus container has exited). The data is then loss right?

Yes the data is gone then unless you create a volume mount where results are persisted. Yep that is the intention. I can’t confirm a date. It’s the next thing I’m working on.