Manage sweeps

Pause, resume, and cancel a sweep with the CLI.

This page shows you how to control the lifecycle of an active sweep from the command line. You can stop wasted compute, preserve in-progress experiments, or temporarily halt exploration without losing state.

Use the W&B CLI to pause, resume, stop, and cancel a sweep. Each command has a different effect on whether the sweep creates new runs and on runs that are already executing. In each case, provide the sweep ID that W&B generated when you initialized the sweep.

Pause a sweep

Pause a sweep so it temporarily stops creating new runs. Runs that are already executing continue running until completion. Use the wandb sweep --pause command to pause a sweep. Provide the sweep ID that you want to pause.

wandb sweep --pause entity/project/sweep_ID

Resume a sweep

Resume a paused sweep with the wandb sweep --resume command. The sweep starts creating new runs again according to its search strategy. Provide the sweep ID that you want to resume:

wandb sweep --resume entity/project/sweep_ID

Stop a sweep

Stop a sweep to prevent the creation of new runs while letting executing runs finish gracefully. Use the wandb sweep --stop command:

wandb sweep --stop entity/project/sweep_ID

Cancel a sweep

Cancel a sweep to immediately terminate all active runs and stop creating new runs. This is the only sweep command that forcibly terminates existing runs. Runs terminate abruptly, and the running processes have no chance to run user-defined signal handlers. Use the wandb sweep --cancel command to cancel a sweep. Provide the sweep ID that you want to cancel. For more information about signals and sweep runs, see Signal handling and sweep runs.

wandb sweep --cancel entity/project/sweep_ID

For a full list of CLI command options, see the wandb sweep CLI Reference Guide.

W&B doesn’t terminate active sweeps or agents when you delete a project.

Sweep and run statuses

A sweep orchestrates multiple runs to explore hyperparameter combinations. To manage your hyperparameter optimization effectively, you must understand how sweep status and run status interact. The following sections describe how the two statuses differ, what happens when you stop an individual run, and which lifecycle command to choose.

Key differences

• Sweep status controls whether the agent creates new runs (Running, Paused, Stopped, Cancelled, Finished, Failed, Crashed).
• Run status reflects the execution state of individual runs (Pending, Running, Finished, Failed, Crashed, Killed).

Stop an individual run

When you stop a run in a sweep, the sweep agent automatically starts the next run in the sweep. You can skip poorly performing configurations without interrupting the sweep’s overall progress.

Best practices

The following recommendations help you choose the right lifecycle command for the situation, so you avoid losing useful work or holding onto unwanted compute.

• Use --pause instead of cancel when you want to temporarily halt exploration without losing running experiments.
• Monitor individual run statuses to identify systematic failures.
• Use --stop for graceful termination when you’ve found satisfactory hyperparameters.
• Reserve --cancel for emergencies when runs consume excessive resources or produce errors.