feat: add whenFailed option for error handling after retries exhausted

[jumski]

Add whenFailed option for error handling after retries are exhausted

This PR adds a new whenFailed option to control what happens when a task fails after all retry attempts are exhausted. The option supports three modes:

• fail (default): Marks the step and run as failed, stopping execution
• skip: Marks the step as skipped and continues the run
• skip-cascade: Marks the step as skipped and also skips all downstream dependent steps

Implementation details:

• Added when_failed column to the steps table with appropriate constraints
• Enhanced fail_task function to handle the different failure modes
• Added support for whenFailed option in the TypeScript DSL
• Created comprehensive tests for all three failure modes
• Ensured type violations still cause hard failures regardless of whenFailed setting

This feature provides more flexibility in error handling, allowing workflows to continue execution even when non-critical steps fail.

[changeset-bot]

🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: 2fd7a67

The changes in this PR will be included in the next version bump.

This PR includes changesets to release 5 packages

Name	Type
@pgflow/core	Patch
@pgflow/dsl	Patch
pgflow	Patch
@pgflow/client	Patch
@pgflow/edge-worker	Patch

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[jumski]

Warning

This pull request is not mergeable via GitHub because a downstack PR is open. Once all requirements are satisfied, merge this PR as a stack on Graphite.
Learn more

• docs: add conditional steps documentation and skipped step styling #594
• fix: improve type safety for skip-cascade mode in flow steps #593
• refactor: rename condition_pattern to required_input_pattern and condition_not_pattern to forbidden_input_pattern #587
• feat: add whenUnmet and whenFailed condition modes to flow shapes #585
• feat: add ifNot condition pattern for negative condition checks #584
• feat: improve type safety for flow step outputs and skippable dependencies #583
• feat: add type safety for skippable step dependencies #582
• feat: add ContainmentPattern type for JSON condition matching #576
• feat: add whenFailed option for error handling after retries exhausted #575 👈 (View in Graphite)
• feat: add conditional step execution with skip/fail behavior #573
• feat: add conditional step execution with skip infrastructure #572
• main

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[nx-cloud]

View your CI Pipeline Execution ↗ for commit 2fd7a67

Command	Status	Duration	Result
nx run edge-worker:test:integration	✅ Succeeded	3m 53s	View ↗
nx run client:e2e	✅ Succeeded	1m 9s	View ↗
nx run cli:e2e	✅ Succeeded	4s	View ↗
nx run edge-worker:e2e	✅ Succeeded	48s	View ↗
nx run core:pgtap	✅ Succeeded	1m 45s	View ↗
nx affected -t verify-exports --base=origin/mai...	✅ Succeeded	3s	View ↗
nx affected -t build --configuration=production...	✅ Succeeded	3s	View ↗
nx affected -t lint typecheck test --parallel -...	✅ Succeeded	25s	View ↗

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☁️ Nx Cloud last updated this comment at 2026-01-14 08:18:21 UTC