feat: add --reverse flag to `temporal workflow show` by veeral-patel · Pull Request #988 · temporalio/cli

veeral-patel · 2026-04-20T21:46:36Z

What changed?

This PR adds a --reverse flag to the temporal workflow show command that fetches Event History newest-event-first via WorkflowService.GetWorkflowExecutionHistoryReverse. Useful for inspecting recent activity on long-running workflows without pulling the full history from the beginning.

Files changed

File	Change
`internal/temporalcli/commands.yaml`	Added `reverse` bool option under `temporal workflow show`
`internal/temporalcli/commands.gen.go`	Regenerated via `make gen` — adds `Reverse` field and `--reverse` flag registration
`internal/temporalcli/commands.workflow_view.go`	Rejects `--reverse` + `--follow`; passes `reverse` and `namespace` into the history iterator
`internal/temporalcli/commands.workflow_exec.go`	Extended `structuredHistoryIter` with a reverse code path that pages through `GetWorkflowExecutionHistoryReverse`; skips continue-as-new traversal in reverse mode
`internal/temporalcli/commands.workflow_view_test.go`	Added tests for tabular reverse output, JSON reverse output, and `--reverse --follow` rejection

How did you test it?

built
run locally and tested manually
added new unit test(s)
added new integration test(s) — not applicable
added new functional test(s) — not applicable (CLI change)

Unit tests

Test case	Input	Expected
Tabular reverse order	Completed workflow (≥2 events), `--reverse`	`WorkflowExecutionCompleted` prints before `WorkflowExecutionStarted` in stdout
JSON reverse order	Completed workflow, `--reverse -o json`	Parsed `events[].eventId` is strictly decreasing across the array
Rejects `--follow`	`--reverse --follow`	Command exits non-zero with error `--reverse cannot be combined with --follow`

Manual tests

Setup

./temporal server start-dev --headless
./temporal workflow start --type ManualReverseTest --task-queue rev-test --workflow-id rev-1 --input '"hello"'
./temporal workflow signal --workflow-id rev-1 --name ping
./temporal workflow signal --workflow-id rev-1 --name ping --input '"second"'
./temporal workflow terminate --workflow-id rev-1 --reason "manual test"

Forward (default) vs reverse — tabular

$ ./temporal workflow show --workflow-id rev-1
Progress:
  ID           Time                     Type
    1  ...                  WorkflowExecutionStarted
    2  ...                  WorkflowTaskScheduled
    3  ...                  WorkflowExecutionSignaled
    4  ...                  WorkflowExecutionSignaled
    5  ...                  WorkflowExecutionTerminated

$ ./temporal workflow show --workflow-id rev-1 --reverse
Progress:
  ID           Time                     Type
    5  ...                  WorkflowExecutionTerminated
    4  ...                  WorkflowExecutionSignaled
    3  ...                  WorkflowExecutionSignaled
    2  ...                  WorkflowTaskScheduled
    1  ...                  WorkflowExecutionStarted

Events are listed newest-first when --reverse is set.

JSON reverse

$ ./temporal workflow show --workflow-id rev-1 --reverse -o json | jq '[.events[].eventId]'
["5", "4", "3", "2", "1"]

eventId values are strictly decreasing, matching reverse order.

Detailed reverse

$ ./temporal workflow show --workflow-id rev-1 --reverse --detailed | grep -E '^-+ \['
--------------- [5] WorkflowExecutionTerminated ---------------
--------------- [4] WorkflowExecutionSignaled ---------------
--------------- [3] WorkflowExecutionSignaled ---------------
--------------- [2] WorkflowTaskScheduled ---------------
--------------- [1] WorkflowExecutionStarted ---------------

Per-event detail sections are rendered in reverse order.

Reject --follow

$ ./temporal workflow show --workflow-id rev-1 --reverse --follow
Error: --reverse cannot be combined with --follow
$ echo $?
1

Nonexistent workflow

$ ./temporal workflow show --workflow-id does-not-exist --reverse
Progress:
  ID           Time                     Type
Error: displaying history failed: workflow not found for ID: does-not-exist
$ echo $?
1

Error-path behavior is unchanged from the forward implementation.

Fetches Event History newest-event-first via WorkflowService.GetWorkflowExecutionHistoryReverse, useful for inspecting recent activity on long-running workflows without pulling the full history. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <[email protected]>

CLAassistant · 2026-04-20T21:46:43Z

Thank you for your submission! We really appreciate it. Like many open source projects, we ask that you sign our Contributor License Agreement before we can accept your contribution.
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harani-mukkala · 2026-04-27T23:40:29Z

+		"--follow",
+	)
+	s.Error(res.Err)
+	s.ErrorContains(res.Err, "--reverse cannot be combined with --follow")


Not something for this PR, but it would be nice to have a way to generate MarkFlagsMutuallyExclusive in the yaml file below.

Seems like this is not currently supported for auto-gen but something the under lying framework supports.

harani-mukkala · 2026-04-27T23:42:50Z

+			return nil, nil
+		}
+		s.reverseStarted = true
+		resp, err := s.client.WorkflowService().GetWorkflowExecutionHistoryReverse(


What is the default page size. For large history would be nice to allow customers to provide a custom size.

the max page size configured on the server side is 256 (batches) I think.

yycptt · 2026-04-28T00:06:05Z

+			return nil, nil
+		}
+		s.reverseStarted = true
+		resp, err := s.client.WorkflowService().GetWorkflowExecutionHistoryReverse(


the max page size configured on the server side is 256 (batches) I think.

veeral-patel requested a review from a team as a code owner April 20, 2026 21:46

davidporter-id-au reviewed Apr 20, 2026

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Comment thread internal/temporalcli/commands.workflow_exec.go

veeral-patel requested a review from yycptt April 27, 2026 23:26

davidporter-id-au approved these changes Apr 27, 2026

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harani-mukkala approved these changes Apr 27, 2026

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yycptt approved these changes Apr 28, 2026

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feat: add --reverse flag to `temporal workflow show`#988

feat: add --reverse flag to `temporal workflow show`#988
veeral-patel wants to merge 1 commit intomainfrom
veeral/workflow-show-reverse

veeral-patel commented Apr 20, 2026

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CLAassistant commented Apr 20, 2026

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harani-mukkala Apr 27, 2026

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veeral-patel commented Apr 20, 2026

What changed?

Files changed

How did you test it?

Unit tests

Manual tests

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CLAassistant commented Apr 20, 2026

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harani-mukkala Apr 27, 2026

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