Enable Event Triggers and Schedules

Enable ZenML Pro event triggers and schedules (scheduler and executor microservices) for self-hosted workspace servers on Kubernetes.

ZenML Pro schedule triggers run pipelines on a cron or interval. Platform event triggers run pipelines when lifecycle events occur in the ZenML platform (for example after another pipeline completes). On self-hosted workspaces, both are part of the same opt-in capability and use the same background infrastructure: two additional microservices—the scheduler and the executor—plus a Redis broker that connects them.

Commercial add-on: Event triggers and schedules (schedule triggers and platform event triggers) are not included in the base ZenML Pro plan. Your organization must purchase and enable them explicitly. See the pricing page for plans and contact ZenML if you need entitlements enabled for your license.

Deploy these microservices only for workspace servers installed with the ZenML Helm chart on Kubernetes. Other platforms (for example AWS ECS) are not covered here.

Prerequisite: Event triggers and schedules dispatch work against pipeline snapshots. You must enable the workload manager (snapshot support) on the workspace server before or together with the scheduler and executor. Follow Enable Snapshot Support first if you have not configured it yet.

Prerequisites

• Snapshot support (workload manager) configured so triggered runs can execute pipeline snapshots in Kubernetes.
• A Redis instance reachable from the workspace namespace. The scheduler and executor use Redis Streams as a message broker. Use a URL such as redis://<redis-host>:6379/0, or rediss://<redis-host>:<port>/0 when Redis requires TLS.
• Enough cluster resources for the two microservices below (see the example resources).

What to configure in Helm

The ZenML Helm chart deploys optional background processes as additional microservices, each declared under the workerDeployments key in your workspace values.yaml. Each map entry becomes its own Kubernetes Deployment.

Add a workerDeployments block next to your existing server: configuration. Each microservice uses the same container image as the ZenML Pro server by default and overrides the entrypoint to run the plugins helper with the subcommands below.

The example enables both the scheduler and executor microservices: they use the plugins command with start-scheduler and start-executor, share ZENML_REDIS_BROKER_URL, and set SQLAlchemy pool sizes appropriate for dedicated pods. Adjust resources, probes, and pool sizes to match your cluster and load.

The scheduler microservice must always run as a single replica with a Recreate rollout strategy. Do not scale it horizontally or switch to RollingUpdate; multiple scheduler pods or overlapping rollouts can break schedule and event dispatch.

workerDeployments:
  scheduler:
    enabled: true
    replicaCount: 1
    command: ["plugins"]
    args: ["start-scheduler"]
    strategy:
      type: Recreate
    resources:
      requests:
        cpu: 100m
        memory: 256Mi
      limits:
        cpu: 500m
        memory: 512Mi
    environment:
      ZENML_STORE_POOL_SIZE: "1"
      ZENML_STORE_MAX_OVERFLOW: "1"
    secretEnvironment:
      ZENML_REDIS_BROKER_URL: redis://zenml-redis:6379/0
    livenessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /health
        port: 8000
      initialDelaySeconds: 30
      periodSeconds: 60
      timeoutSeconds: 2
      failureThreshold: 3
    readinessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /health
        port: 8000
      initialDelaySeconds: 10
      periodSeconds: 30
      timeoutSeconds: 2
      failureThreshold: 3

  executor:
    enabled: true
    replicaCount: 1
    command: ["plugins"]
    args: ["start-executor"]
    resources:
      requests:
        cpu: 100m
        memory: 256Mi
      limits:
        cpu: 500m
        memory: 1024Mi
    environment:
      ZENML_CONSUMER_WORKER_POOL_SIZE: "16"
      ZENML_STORE_POOL_SIZE: "1"
      ZENML_STORE_MAX_OVERFLOW: "8"
    secretEnvironment:
      ZENML_REDIS_BROKER_URL: redis://zenml-redis:6379/0
    livenessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /health
        port: 8000
      initialDelaySeconds: 30
      periodSeconds: 60
      timeoutSeconds: 2
      failureThreshold: 3
    readinessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /health
        port: 8000
      initialDelaySeconds: 10
      periodSeconds: 30
      timeoutSeconds: 2
      failureThreshold: 3

For platform event triggers, the workspace API server must use the same Redis broker URL so it can publish pipeline lifecycle events (for example run completion) to Redis Streams for the executor to consume. Define this as a Kubernetes Secret in server.secretEnvironment and merge with any keys you already set:

server:
  secretEnvironment:
    ZENML_REDIS_BROKER_URL: redis://zenml-redis:6379/0

Environment variables (reference)

Variable	Where	Purpose
ZENML_REDIS_BROKER_URL	scheduler, executor, API server	Redis connection URL for the broker
ZENML_STORE_POOL_SIZE	scheduler, executor	SQLAlchemy pool size (defaults apply if unset)
ZENML_STORE_MAX_OVERFLOW	scheduler, executor	SQLAlchemy max overflow for the store connection pool
ZENML_CONSUMER_WORKER_POOL_SIZE	executor	Async pool size for dispatch processing in the executor microservice

Apply the change

After updating your values file, upgrade the release (adjust release name and namespace as you use them):

helm upgrade zenml oci://public.ecr.aws/zenml/zenml \
  --namespace zenml-workspace \
  --values zenml-workspace-values.yaml

Related behavior

• Triggers and snapshots: Both schedule and platform event triggers attach to pipeline snapshots. Snapshot support is therefore a prerequisite: without the workload manager, triggered runs cannot execute as described in Triggers.
• Concepts: See Schedule Triggers and Platform Event Triggers for how these triggers are modeled in ZenML Pro.

Related resources

• Self-hosted Deployment on Kubernetes with Helm
• Enable Snapshot (Workload Manager) Support
• Triggers
• Helm chart on Artifact Hub