---
id: ORC-15
family: RT-ORC
level: extended
profiles: [runtime]
posture: normative-target
added: "1.0"
changed: "1.0"
source: https://flowdrop.io/spec/rules/rt-orc/orc-15
specification: FlowDrop Workflow Specification 1.0-draft
licence: CC BY 4.0
---

# ORC-15 — A cancelled run is announced like any other terminal outcome

*RT-ORC (Part II) · level: extended · profiles: runtime · added in 1.0*

Cancellation leaves the run through its own path, so it is easy to forget to announce. Anything watching for a run to finish must see a cancelled run finish.

## The rule

> **Normative.** This is the rule.
>
> 1. Every path that cancels a run announces the run's completion carrying the status cancelled, exactly once per cancellation, with the run's identity and its duration.
>
> 2. Consumers of that announcement must treat cancelled as its own outcome and not as a completed run.
>
> 3. A cancelled sub-workflow resolves to its caller with status cancelled and empty outputs.


## What it means

Anything watching for a run to finish must not mistake a cancelled run for
one still in progress: cancellation ends the run through its own path, and
that path is easy to forget to announce, so this rule pins the announcement
as mandatory rather than incidental. A listener that only checks for
completion, and treats silence as "still running," is exactly the bug this
closes.

A cancelled sub-workflow resolving to its caller is the same rule seen from
the other side. Whatever the resolved response looked like — no response at
all, a bare status, or an outputs field that is not itself a set of values —
none of it is treated as partial results. The caller sees an empty result,
never a fabricated one assembled from whatever happened to be present.

## Example

A sub-workflow's resolved response, in shapes a cancellation or an
outputless resume can leave behind:

```json title="A resolved response with no outputs field at all" verdict="cancelled"
{ "status": "cancelled" }
```

```json title="What the caller receives from it" verdict="empty"
{}
```

## Related rules

- Names: ORC-11
- Referenced by: ORC-11, INT-11, INT-5, INT-18

---

Rule identifiers are permanent and are never renumbered. This specification carries
no implementation status: each implementation publishes its own standing against
these rules. Licensed CC BY 4.0.