Short answer: yes. If a user is a workspace member with the Runner role in Prefect Cloud (3.x), they can use their own user API key from a local machine to trigger runs of existing deployments via the CLI or Python SDK. This enqueues a flow run; a worker in your work pool must be online to actually execute it. What they can do with Runner: - Trigger existing deployments (enqueue flow runs) - View basic run/deployment state What they cannot do: - Create/edit deployments, blocks, work pools, or workspace settings - Run ad-hoc flows (only via deployments) Quick setup from a laptop:

prefect config set PREFECT_API_URL="<https://api.prefect.cloud/api/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/workspaces/<WORKSPACE_ID>>"
prefect config set PREFECT_API_KEY="<USER_API_KEY>"

# Trigger a deployment
prefect deployment run "<FLOW_NAME>/<DEPLOYMENT_NAME>" --param key=value --watch

Python SDK example:

from prefect.deployments import run_deployment

flow_run = run_deployment(
    name="my-flow/my-deployment",
    parameters={"my_param": 42}
)

Docs: - Workspace roles (Runner) - API keys - Connect to Cloud - Run deployments If you’d like, share a deployment name and I can help you test the end-to-end trigger from a laptop.