Job Commands

The Camber CLI provides comprehensive commands to manage your computational jobs throughout their lifecycle. Whether you’re running MPI simulations, MESA stellar evolution models, or Athena fluid dynamics, these commands help you create, monitor, and retrieve results from your jobs.

Creating Jobs

Jobs in Camber execute your code on scalable compute resources. When creating a job, you specify the computational engine, resource requirements, and the command to run.

Basic Job Creation

Create a simple MPI job with the default settings:

camber job create --cmd "mpirun -np 4 hello_world" --path stash://your-username/my-project/

This creates an MPI job using the smallest available resources (xxsmall) with a single compute engine.

⚠️

Ensure all necessary files are uploaded to your stash path before creating the job. The job will fail if required files are missing.

Advanced Job Configuration

For more demanding computational workloads, specify additional resources and specialized engines:

# Create a MESA stellar evolution job with more resources
camber job create \
  --engine mesa \
  --size medium \
  --cmd "./mk && ./rn" \
  --path stash://your-username/stellar-evolution/

Job Creation Flags

Flags:
      --cmd string        command for the job (required)
      --engine string     Type for the job (required): mpi, spark, mesa, athena, nextflow, gromacs, lammps, openfoam (default "mpi")
      --gpu               Whether to use GPU (default: false)
  -h, --help              help for create
      --num-engines int   Number of engines to use (default: 1) (default 1)
      --params string     Configurations for the Nextflow pipeline
      --path string       Input stash path for the job (e.g., stash://project/) (required)
      --pipeline string   A remote pipeline or a local nf config file in private stash (required for Nextflow)
      --size string       Engine for the job (required): xxsmall, xsmall, small, medium, large, xlarge, xxlarge (default "xxsmall")

When you create a job, you’ll receive confirmation with the job ID:

Create 'mesa' job with size='medium', num-engines='1', cmd='./mk && ./rn', gpu='false', path='stash://your-username/stellar-evolution/'
Job created successfully.
Status: Submitted
Job ID: 2080

Monitoring Job Status

Track your job’s progress and view detailed information using the job ID returned during creation.

Check Individual Job Status

camber job get 2080

This displays comprehensive job information including execution time, resource usage, and current status:

======================Job Information======================
Job ID:              2080
Status:              COMPLETED
Job Type:            MESA
Engine Size:         MEDIUM
Command:             ./mk && ./rn
With GPU:            false
Number of Engines:   1
Start Time:          2025-05-05T15:45:02Z
Duration:            16s
Finish Time:         2025-05-05T15:45:18Z
===========================================================

JSON Output for Automation

For programmatic access or integration with other tools, use JSON output:

camber job get 2080 --output json

Flags:

      --output string     Output format: json

Viewing Job History

List your recent jobs to track progress across multiple workloads or find specific job IDs.

Recent Jobs Overview

camber job list

This shows your 10 most recent jobs with key information.

Paginated Job Listing

For accounts with many jobs, use pagination to navigate through your job history:

# View jobs 11-20
camber job list --page 2 --size 10

# View just the 3 most recent jobs
camber job list --size 3

Flags:

    --page int          Page number for pagination (default: 1)
    --size int          Number of jobs per page (default: 10)
    --output string     Output format: json

Example output showing multiple jobs:

======================Job Information======================
No:                  1
Job ID:              1216
Status:              COMPLETED
Job Type:            MPI
Engine Size:         XXSMALL
Command:             make
Duration:            14s
------------------------------------------------------------
No:                  2
Job ID:              1217
Status:              COMPLETED
Job Type:            MPI
Engine Size:         LARGE
Command:             athena -i orszag_tang.athinput
Duration:            45s
------------------------------------------------------------

Total: 621 job(s); Page 1; Size: 2

Retrieving Job Logs

After job completion, download logs to debug issues, verify results, or save output for analysis.

Download Job Logs

camber job log 2080 ~/Downloads/

This downloads the complete job log to your specified local directory:

Downloaded ~/Downloads/job_00002080.log: 100.00% (312B/312B)
Log for job 2080 downloaded to ~/Downloads/

The log file contains:

Standard output and error from your command
System messages about resource allocation
Timing information and performance metrics
Any error messages if the job failed

Organizing Job Logs

Create organized directories for job logs by project:

# Create project-specific log directory
mkdir -p ~/camber-logs/stellar-evolution/
camber job log 2080 ~/camber-logs/stellar-evolution/

Stash Commands Engines & Pricing