release_watcher_gc_interval

Description

The release_watcher_gc_interval parameter controls how frequently the rack cleans up orphaned tracking slots for in-flight promote operations. The rack tracks each in-flight convox releases promote; under heavy promote churn (many promotes within a short window), orphaned slots can accumulate if not periodically swept.

Accepts a duration string, for example 5m, 30m, or 1h.

Default Value

The default value is 5m.

Allowed Range

60s to 1h. Values below 60s produce excessive Kubernetes API churn on racks with many apps; values above 1h allow orphaned slots to accumulate beyond reasonable bounds. Values outside the 60s to 1h range, or values that are not valid durations, are rejected.

Use Cases

High-churn deployment pipelines: Bump to 2m for racks running CI/CD with frequent rolling promotes; tighter sweep prevents orphan accumulation.
Quiet steady-state racks: Bump to 30m or 1h to reduce baseline Kubernetes API load on racks with infrequent promote activity.

Setting Parameters

To tighten the GC sweep to 2 minutes:

$ convox rack params set release_watcher_gc_interval=2m -r rackName
Setting parameters... OK

To revert to the default:

$ convox rack params set release_watcher_gc_interval=5m -r rackName
Setting parameters... OK

To clear the override (falls back to the default 5m):

$ convox rack params set release_watcher_gc_interval= -r rackName
Setting parameters... OK

Operational Notes

Changing this value triggers a rolling restart of the rack's API component so the new interval takes effect.
The cleanup sweep is bounded. Even at the maximum 1h interval, accumulation is capped because individual tracking slots have their own expiry.

releases_to_retain_after_active: Controls how many historical releases the rack retains in storage. Independent of the GC sweep frequency for in-flight watcher slots, but conceptually adjacent.

Version Requirements

This parameter requires at least Convox rack version 3.24.6.