To create flow runs in a local or remote execution environment, first connect with Prefect Cloud or a Prefect server as the backend API server.

This involves:

  • Configuring the execution environment with the location of the API.
  • Authenticating with the API, either by logging in or providing a valid API key (Prefect Cloud only).

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Log into Prefect Cloud from a terminal

Configure a local execution environment to use Prefect Cloud as the API server for flow runs. You will log in a to Prefect Cloud account from the local environment where you want to run a flow.

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Steps

  1. Open a new terminal session.
  2. Install Prefect in the environment where you want to execute flow runs.
pip install -U prefect
  1. Use the prefect cloud login Prefect CLI command to log into Prefect Cloud from your environment.
prefect cloud login

The prefect cloud login command provides an interactive login experience.

prefect cloud login

? How would you like to authenticate? [Use arrows to move; enter to select]
> Log in with a web browser
    Paste an API key
Paste your authentication key:
? Which workspace would you like to use? [Use arrows to move; enter to select]
> prefect/terry-prefect-workspace
    g-gadflow/g-workspace
Authenticated with Prefect Cloud! Using workspace 'prefect/terry-prefect-workspace'.

You can authenticate by manually pasting an API key or through a browser-based approval that auto-generates an API key with a 30-day expiration.

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Change workspaces

To change which workspace to sync with, use the prefect cloud workspace set Prefect CLI command while logged in, passing the account handle and workspace name:

prefect cloud workspace set --workspace "prefect/my-workspace"

If you don’t provide a workspace, you will need to select one.

Workspace Settings also shows you the prefect cloud workspace set Prefect CLI command to sync a local execution environment with a given workspace.

You may also use the prefect cloud login command with the --workspace or -w option to set the current workspace.

prefect cloud login --workspace "prefect/my-workspace"

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Manually configure Prefect API settings

You can manually configure the PREFECT_API_URL setting to specify the Prefect Cloud API.

For Prefect Cloud, configure the PREFECT_API_URL and PREFECT_API_KEY settings to authenticate with Prefect Cloud by using an account ID, workspace ID, and API key.

prefect config set PREFECT_API_URL="https://api.prefect.cloud/api/accounts/[ACCOUNT-ID]/workspaces/[WORKSPACE-ID]"
prefect config set PREFECT_API_KEY="[API-KEY]"

Find account ID and workspace ID in the browser

When authenticated to your Prefect Cloud workspace in the browser, you can get the account ID and workspace ID for the PREFECT_API_URL string from the page URL.

For example, if you’re on the dashboard page, the URL looks like this:

https://app.prefect.cloud/account/[ACCOUNT-ID]/workspace/[WORKSPACE-ID]/dashboard

The example above configures PREFECT_API_URL and PREFECT_API_KEY in the default profile.

You can use prefect profile CLI commands to create settings profiles for different configurations. For example, you can configure a “cloud” profile to use the Prefect Cloud API URL and API key; and another “local” profile for local development using a local Prefect API server started with prefect server start. See Settings for details.

Environment variables

You can set PREFECT_API_URL and PREFECT_API_KEY just like any other environment variable. Setting these environment variables is a good way to connect to Prefect Cloud in a remote serverless environment. See Overriding defaults with environment variables for more information.

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Install requirements in execution environments

In local and remote execution environments, such as VMs and containers, ensure that you’ve installed any flow requirements or dependencies before creating a flow run.