UnionRemote#

The UnionRemote Python API supports functionality similar to that of the union CLI, enabling you to manage Union workflows, tasks, launch plans and artifacts from within your Python code.

Note

The primary use case of UnionRemote is to automate the deployment of Union entities. As such, it is intended for use within scripts external to actual Union workflow and task code, for example CI/CD pipeline scripts.

Creating a UnionRemote object#

To use UnionRemote, install the union SDK with pip install union, then import the class and create the object like this:

from union.remote import UnionRemote

remote = UnionRemote()

By default, when created with a no-argument constructor, UnionRemote will use the prevailing configuration in the local environment to connect to Union, that is, the same configuration as would be used by the union CLI in that environment (see Union CLI > union CLI configuration search path).

In the default case, as with the union CLI, all operations will be applied to the default project, flytesnacks and default domain, development.

Alternatively, you can initialize UnionRemote by explicitly specifying a flytekit.configuration.Config object with connection information to a Union instance, a project, and a domain. Additionally the constructor supports specifying a file upload location (equivalent to a default raw data prefix (see XX)):

from union.remote import UnionRemote
from flytekit.configuration import Config

remote = UnionRemote(
    config=Config.for_endpoint(endpoint="union.example.com"),
    default_project="my-project",
    default_domain="my-domain",
    data_upload_location="<s3|gs|abs>://my-bucket/my-prefix",
)

Here we use the Config.for_endpoint method to specify the URL to connect to. There are number of other ways to configure the Config object. In general, you have all the same options as you would when specifying a connection for the union CLI using a config.yaml file. For details see the API docs for flytekit.configuration.Config.

Registering entities#

Tasks, workflows, and launch plans can be registered using UnionRemote:

from flytekit.configuration import SerializationSettings

some_entity = ...
my_task = remote.register_task(
    entity=some_entity,
    serialization_settings=SerializationSettings(image_config=None),
    version="v1",
)
my_workflow = remote.register_workflow(
    entity=some_entity,
    serialization_settings=SerializationSettings(image_config=None),
    version="v1",
)
my_launch_plan = remote.register_launch_plan(entity=some_entity, version="v1")
  • entity: the entity to register.

  • version: the version that will be used to register. If not specified, the version used in serialization settings will be used.

  • serialization_settings: the serialization settings to use. Refer to configuration.SerializationSettings to know all the acceptable parameters.

All the additional parameters which can be sent to the register_* methods can be found in the documentation for the corresponding method: register_task, register_workflow, and register_launch_plan.

The configuration.SerializationSettings class accepts configuration.ImageConfig which holds the available images to use for the registration.

The following example showcases how to register a workflow using an existing image if the workflow is created locally:

from flytekit.configuration import ImageConfig

img = ImageConfig.from_images(
    "docker.io/xyz:latest", {"spark": "docker.io/spark:latest"}
)
wf2 = remote.register_workflow(
    my_remote_wf,
    serialization_settings=SerializationSettings(image_config=img),
    version="v1",
)

Fetching tasks, workflows, launch plans, and executions#

my_task = remote.fetch_task(name="my_task", version="v1")
my_workflow = remote.fetch_workflow(name="my_workflow", version="v1")
my_launch_plan = remote.fetch_launch_plan(name="my_launch_plan", version="v1")
my_execution = remote.fetch_execution(name="my_execution")

project and domain can also be specified in all the fetch_* calls. If not specified, the default values given during the creation of the UnionRemote object will be used.

The following is an example that fetches tasks and creates a workflow:

from flytekit import workflow

task_1 = remote.fetch_task(name="core.basic.hello_world.say_hello", version="v1")
task_2 = remote.fetch_task(
    name="core.basic.lp.greet",
    version="v13",
    project="flytesnacks",
    domain="development",
)

@workflow
def my_remote_wf(name: str) -> int:
    return task_2(task_1(name=name))

Another example that dynamically creates a launch plan for the my_remote_wf workflow:

from flytekit import LaunchPlan

my_workflow = remote.fetch_workflow(
    name="my_workflow",
    version="v1",
    project="flytesnacks",
    domain="development",
)
launch_plan = LaunchPlan.get_or_create(name="my_launch_plan", workflow=my_workflow)

Fetching artifacts#

Each artifact version has a unique URI of the form flyte://<organization>/<project>/<domain>/<artifact_name>@<artifact_version>.

To fetch a single artifact, pass this URI to the get_artifact method:

from flytekit.configuration import Config, PlatformConfig, AuthType
from union.remote import UnionRemote

remote = UnionRemote(
    Config.auto().with_params(
        platform=PlatformConfig(
            endpoint="example.domain.unionai.cloud",
            insecure=False,
        )
    )
)

remote.get_artifact("flyte://<organization>/<project>/<domain>/<artifact_name>@<artifact_version>")

To dynamically query for artifacts, you can pass an artifact URI with a query to the get_artifact method, adding as many partition key-value pairs as you wish to filter on. The query will retrieve the latest artifact version that matches the partition-based filters:

from flytekit.configuration import Config, PlatformConfig, AuthType
from union.remote import UnionRemote

remote = UnionRemote(
    Config.auto().with_params(
        platform=PlatformConfig(
            endpoint="example.domain.unionai.cloud",
            insecure=False,
        )
    )
)

remote.get_artifact("flyte://<organization>/<project>/<domain>/<artifact_name>?<partition_key1>=<partition_value1>&...")

Creating artifacts#

To create an artifact with UnionRemote, declare the artifact, then pass it to the create_artifact method:

from flytekit.configuration import Config, PlatformConfig, AuthType
from union.remote import UnionRemote
from flytekit.core.artifact import Artifact

remote = UnionRemote(
    Config.auto().with_params(
        platform=PlatformConfig(
            endpoint="example.domain.unionai.cloud",
            insecure=False,
        )
    )
)

BasicArtifact = Artifact(name="my_basic_artifact")
remote.create_artifact(BasicArtifact)

For the full list of parameters, see the Artifact class documentation.

Note

If you want to create a new version of an existing artifact, be sure to set the version parameter. Without it, attempting to recreate the same artifact will result in an error.

Executing tasks, workflows, and launch plans#

You can execute a task, workflow, or launch plan using the execute method which returns a FlyteWorkflowExecution object:

some_entity = ...  # one of FlyteTask, FlyteWorkflow, or FlyteLaunchPlan
execution = remote.execute(
    some_entity,
    inputs={...},
    execution_name="my_execution",
    wait=True,
)
  • inputs: the inputs to the entity.

  • execution_name: the name of the execution. This is useful to avoid de-duplication of executions.

  • wait: synchronously wait for the execution to complete.

Additional arguments include:

  • project: the project on which to execute the entity.

  • domain: the domain on which to execute the entity.

  • type_hints: a dictionary mapping Python types to their corresponding Flyte types.

  • options: options can be configured for a launch plan during registration or overridden during execution. Refer to Options to know all the acceptable parameters.

The following is an example demonstrating how to use the Options class to configure a Flyte entity:

from flytekit.models.common import AuthRole, Labels
from flytekit.tools.translator import Options

some_entity = ...  # one of FlyteTask, FlyteWorkflow, or FlyteLaunchPlan
execution = remote.execute(
    some_entity,
    inputs={...},
    execution_name="my_execution",
    wait=True,
    options=Options(
        raw_data_prefix="s3://my-bucket/my-prefix",
        auth_role=AuthRole(assumable_iam_role="my-role"),
        labels=Labels({"my-label": "my-value"}),
    ),
)

Retrieving and inspecting executions#

After an execution is completed, you can retrieve the execution using the fetch_execution method. The fetched execution can be used to retrieve the inputs and outputs of an execution:

execution = remote.fetch_execution(
    name="fb22e306a0d91e1c6000",
    project="flytesnacks",
    domain="development",
)
input_keys = execution.inputs.keys()
output_keys = execution.outputs.keys()

The inputs and outputs correspond to the top-level execution or the workflow itself.

To fetch a specific output, say, a model file:

model_file = execution.outputs["model_file"]
with open(model_file) as f:
    # use mode
    ...

You can use sync to sync the entity object’s state with the remote state during the execution run:

synced_execution = remote.sync(execution, sync_nodes=True)
node_keys = synced_execution.node_executions.keys()

node_executions will fetch all the underlying node executions recursively.

To fetch output of a specific node execution:

node_execution_output = synced_execution.node_executions["n1"].outputs["model_file"]

Node here can correspond to a task, workflow, or branch node.

Reference launch plan executions#

When retrieving and inspecting an execution which calls a launch plan, the launch plan manifests as a sub-workflow which can be found within the workflow_executions of a given node execution. Note that the workflow execution of interest must again be synced in order to inspect the input and output of the contained tasks.

@task
def add_random(x: int) -> int:
    return x + random.randint(1, 100)

@workflow
def sub_wf(x: int) -> int:
    x = add_random(x=x)
    return add_random(x=x)

sub_wf_lp = LaunchPlan.get_or_create(
    name="sub_wf_lp",
    workflow=sub_wf,
)

@workflow
def parent_wf(x: int = 1) -> int:
    x = add_random(x=x)
    return sub_wf_lp(x=x)

To get the output of the first add_random call in sub_wf, you can do the following with the execution from the parent_wf:

execution = remote.fetch_execution(
    name="adgswtrzfn99k2cws49q",
    project="flytesnacks",
    domain="development",
)
remote.sync_execution(execution, sync_nodes=True)
remote.sync_execution(execution.node_executions['n1'].workflow_executions[0], sync_nodes=True)
out = execution.node_executions['n1'].workflow_executions[0].node_executions['n0'].outputs['o0']

Listing entities#

To list recent executions, use the recent_executions method:

recent_executions = remote.recent_executions(
    project="flytesnacks",
    domain="development",
    limit=10,
)

The limit parameter is optional and defaults to 100.

To list tasks by version, use the UnionRemote.list_tasks_by_version method.

tasks = remote.list_tasks_by_version(
    project="flytesnacks",
    domain="development",
    version="v1",
)

Terminating an execution#

To terminate an execution, use the terminate method:

execution = remote.fetch_execution(
    name="fb22e306a0d91e1c6000",
    project="flytesnacks",
    domain="development",
)
remote.terminate(execution, cause="Code needs to be updated")