---
title: "Read execution metadata"
method: GET
path: "/computers/{id}/executions/{executionId}"
tags: ["Control"]
---

# Read execution metadata

`GET /computers/{id}/executions/{executionId}`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1`
- URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1/computers/{id}/executions/{executionId}`
- Auth: HTTP bearer

Reads daemon memory only, without guest commands, files, watcher setup or automatic resume. Only background exec participates; synchronous results have no retrievable execution ID yet. The ID comes from the 202 response and both exited/lost process.exited payloads. IDs cannot resolve to a replacement command when a PID is reused. Current computer scope and the original execution scope must both match. No command text or output is included. Handles are ephemeral: daemon restart, computer removal, PID replacement or cleanup makes an ID unavailable. Observed exits expire after ten minutes. Unknown and expired IDs both return 404 with code execution_unavailable, never an empty successful result. A computer outside the caller’s scope returns 404 computer not found with no code. Lost may be observed briefly before the handle is removed.

Requires the `member` role or higher.

## Path parameters

- `id` string, required
- `executionId` string, required

## Response `200`

Last known daemon metadata; no guest work.

- Execution
  - `execution_id` string, required: Opaque background execution ID. An identifier, never authorization.
  - `computer_id` string, required: The computer this execution belongs to.
  - `pid` integer, required: Guest PID, which may be reused; identify results by execution_id.
  - `status` 'running' | 'lost' | 'exited', required: Last daemon observation. Running does not imply the computer is awake; lost has no known exit code.
  - `started_at` string, required: Daemon acceptance time, RFC 3339.
  - `ended_at` string: Observed exit time, RFC 3339; absent unless exited.
  - `exit_code` integer: Present only for an observed exit. This is not task success.
  - `output_source` 'volatile_guest_files', required: Guest output is mutable and ephemeral, not retained history.

## Other responses

- `400`: The request was malformed — a bad resolution string, a missing `command`, a `{pid}` or `{window}` that is not one. It is also what a well-formed request gets when the thing it names cannot be acted on and never will be — a restore onto a computer that is gone, for instance. Either way it is final: the message says what is wrong, and sending it again unchanged answers the same. That is the whole difference from a `503`, which means ask again shortly.
- `401`: Platform authentication required or refused: reason is missing, invalid, or revoked, with WWW-Authenticate: Bearer (invalid_token for invalid/revoked).
- `403`: The credential is recognized but its holder lacks the required role or membership, or the holder/account is suspended, or the holder has not verified their email address. An ordinary denial for too low a role may carry no `reason`. The email one carries none either, and its message begins `Verify your email before`: it answers a create, a clone of a computer or a snapshot, a new API key and a new SSH key, and is cleared by verifying the address in the dashboard. `reason: "revoked"` marks authority that is gone: a suspended account or a lost membership (refused as the request arrives, or if it happens while the request is in flight), or a role that was lowered while the request was in flight. The message identifies the refusal; replacing a valid key alone does not restore authority, and sending the same call again does not help.
- `404`: No such resource in your scope — a computer, snapshot, secret, webhook, SSH key, API key, workspace, operation and so on — or no such endpoint; a confirmed missing guest file is no such file in the guest.
- `405`: This public path exists but does not accept that method. Allow lists only its public methods, with HEAD for GET and metadata OPTIONS.
- `429`: You are asking faster than your plan allows. `Retry-After` says how many seconds to wait, and every metered response — anything past authentication and the re-check that your credential’s authority still holds — carries `RateLimit-Remaining`, so you do not have to be refused to find out. A `401`, a `403` from that re-check, an `OPTIONS` answer and an unexpected `500` carry none. The budget is spent in proportion to what a call costs rather than per request. What a call costs, in budget units, by kind (each operation’s exact figure is its `x-rate-cost` in the OpenAPI document): 1 to read one thing; 5 for a listing that spans the fleet, and 5 for a call into a running guest such as a screenshot or an exec; 10 for a power change and 10 to move file bytes; 25 for `GET /usage`, `GET /credits`, creating a public URL, and creating, rotating or testing a webhook; 50 to capture a snapshot; 100 to create, clone or restore a computer, and 100 to start an agent run, whose actions are then charged as they happen. The account-wide budget, as what an idle caller may spend at once and what refills each minute: No plan 1200 at once and 1200 a minute; Solo 4800 at once and 4800 a minute; Studio 12000 at once and 12000 a minute; Swarm 21600 at once and 21600 a minute. A single API key gets half of either. A `401` for a missing or unusable credential costs nothing: it is refused before anything is metered. A few refusals at the door cost one unit: a `403` because the role is too low or the route refuses an API key confined to a workspace, a `404` for a path that matches nothing, a `405`, and an `Idempotency-Key` answered from its stored result or still in progress. Everything else is charged in full when it is admitted, before it is carried out, so a refusal after that has spent the whole cost: a `400`, `402` or `409` from the route, a `403` its handler sends (on most routes, a suspended account included), and a model provider’s `401` on an agent run. The budget belongs to the account and is shared across everything on it, and any single API key may spend at most half of it. `RateLimit-Limit` is whichever of those two is binding on the request that carried it — usually the per-key half, and the account-wide figure when other keys have already spent more of it than this one has. All three `RateLimit-*` headers describe the same one, so `limit` minus `remaining` is what has been spent against it. A few `429`s are not about this budget, say so in their message, and can carry no `Retry-After`: a model provider’s rate limit relayed on an agent run. The cap on forks of one snapshot waiting for their secrets sends its own bounded expiry-based `Retry-After` with `reason: "contention"` (see `POST /snapshots/{id}/clone`).
- `500`: The application could not finish this: an unexpected exception, a build that broke, or a storage fault. Application refusals carry the request correlation ID; unexpected internal details are not returned.
- `503`: Something this depends on — a hypervisor, a store, or a host’s capacity — could not answer or take this right now. A read can be retried shortly. A change answered `503` may or may not have happened — a failure after the request was sent is answered the same way, with or without a warning in the message — so read the current state before retrying anything that is not safe to repeat, such as a create or a command. On the collection reads, `allow_partial=1` accepts a knowingly short answer instead.

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/revisions/2afbb87fa703?raw)
