Start a Run

You’ve defined your workflow, and the final step is to trigger the endpoint!

There are two main ways to start your workflow:

​

1. Using client.trigger (Recommended)

We recommend using client.trigger to start your workflow.

// Using the workflow client
import { Client } from "@upstash/workflow";

const client = new Client({ token: "<QSTASH_TOKEN>" });

const { workflowRunId } = await client.trigger({
  url: "https://<YOUR_WORKFLOW_ENDPOINT>/<YOUR-WORKFLOW-ROUTE>",
  body: "hello there!",         // Optional body
  headers: { ... },             // Optional headers
  workflowRunId: "my-workflow", // Optional workflow run ID
  retries: 3                    // Optional retries for the initial request
});

​

2. Sending an HTTP Request

This approach is recommended for quick testing via curl.

curl -X POST https://<YOUR_WORKFLOW_ENDPOINT>/<YOUR-WORKFLOW-ROUTE> \
     -H "my-header: foo" \
     -d '{"foo": "bar"}'

curl -X POST https://<YOUR_WORKFLOW_ENDPOINT>/<YOUR-WORKFLOW-ROUTE> \
     -H "my-header: foo" \
     -d '{"foo": "bar"}'

await fetch("https://<YOUR_WORKFLOW_ENDPOINT>/<YOUR-WORKFLOW-ROUTE>", {
  method: "POST",
  body: JSON.stringify({ "foo": "bar" }),
  headers: {
    "my-header": "foo"
  }
});

import requests

requests.post(
    "https://<YOUR_WORKFLOW_ENDPOINT>/<YOUR-WORKFLOW-ROUTE>", json={"foo": "bar"}, headers={"my-header": "foo"}
)

​

Accessing Payload and Headers

When you call the endpoint, the payload and headers you send will be accessible in the context:

• The payload is available in the context.requestPayload field.
• The headers are available in the context.headers field.

For more details, refer to the documentation on the Context object.