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# Testing & Debugging

> Step through a run one node at a time and follow a run's progress from start to finish.

Before you rely on a workflow, you want to see it work. Two features help: a
step-through debugger that lets you walk a run node by node, and run history that
shows what happened during any run. Together they turn "I think this works" into
"I watched it work."

## Stepping through a run

The debugger starts a run and pauses it before the first step. From there you can
advance one step at a time, or let it run to the end. Each time it pauses, you
can see what is about to happen and what just happened.

#### Start a session

Pick a workflow and start a debug session. The run pauses at the very
beginning, before anything has happened.

#### Step forward

Advance by one step. That step runs, then the session pauses again before the
next one, so you can inspect the result.

#### Inspect the pause

At each pause you can see the details below: the input the next step will use,
the output of the step that just ran, and the current values in the run.

#### Run to the end

When you have seen enough, let the session run the rest of the way to a
finish, or stop it to end the session early.

### What you can see at each pause

| At a pause             | What it shows                                                                                                                     |
| ---------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Next step's input      | The exact values the upcoming step will run with, after any expressions have been worked out.                                     |
| Previous step's output | What the step that just ran produced.                                                                                             |
| Branch decision        | When a [Conditional](/platform/workflows/node-reference/logic-and-flow/conditional) has run, which path it chose and why.         |
| Current values         | All the values available at this point, grouped as node, config, secret, and system. Secret values are shown masked as `*******`. |

Debugging runs a workflow for real. Steps that send messages, place calls, or
write to other systems will actually do those things while you step through. Use
test data, or a workflow set up for testing, if you do not want real effects.

A paused session does not stay open forever. If you leave it idle for a while
(about 15 minutes), it ends on its own. Taking any action keeps it going.

## Following a run's progress

Every run, whether you started it by hand or it was triggered, builds up a
history as it goes: a timeline of events you can follow in real time. It records
when the run started, when each step started and finished, which path a
Conditional took, and when the run completed or was cancelled.

This is how you check on a run without stepping through it. You can watch a live
run move along, or open a finished run to see everything that happened and in
what order. If a step failed, the history shows where.

If a step produces a very large output, its entry in the history is shortened
so the timeline stays quick to load. This only affects what the history
displays; the full value is still passed on to the next step as normal.

## Related

#### [Timeouts & Retries](/platform/workflows/core-concepts/timeouts-retries)

Understand how a slow or failing step is handled during a run.

#### [Variables & Data Flow](/platform/workflows/core-concepts/variables-data-flow)

Make sense of the values you see at each pause.