Watch Active State

By default, when you add a watch it is immediately set to the active state. An active watch is registered with the relevant trigger engine and executed according to its configured trigger. For example, if a watch has a schedule trigger, it is executed according to its schedule.

A watch can also be set to the inactive state. An inactive watch is still registered with Watcher, but it is not registered with a trigger engine and can never be triggered. When you add a watch, you can use the active parameter to set its initial state to inactive. You can deactivate an existing watch with the Deactivate Watch API. To reactivate a watch, you use the Activate Watch API.

Deactivating watches is useful in a variety of situations. For example, if you have a watch that monitors an external system and need to take the system down for maintenance, you can deactivate the watch so doesn’t unnecessarily report a bunch of execution failures during the maintenance window. You might also want to deactivate a watch rather than deleting it entirely in case you might want to use it at some point in the future.