Worker States - Vast.ai Documentation: Affordable GPU Cloud Marketplace

Worker states represent the current operational status of your serverless worker instances. Understanding these states helps you monitor your workers’ health and manage your costs effectively.

Worker States in the Vast UI

The following table describes all available worker states that are shown to users in the UI:

State Name	Description	Billing State
Ready	Worker is fully initialized with model loaded and ready to process tasks	Ready
Loading	Worker is loading resources or configurations	Loading
Inactive	Worker is created but stopped, not currently processing	Inactive
Destroying	Worker is being destroyed and resources are being released	Not billed
Error	Worker has encountered an error and requires attention	Not billed
Rebooting	Worker is restarting to apply updates or recover from issues	Billed by previous state
Creating	Worker is being created and initialized	Creating
Starting	Worker is in the process of transitioning to Ready state	Ready
Stopping	Worker is in the process of transitioning to Inactive state	Inactive
Updating	Worker is in the process of being updated and rebooted	Ready

For more information on the specific breakdown of charges, please refer to Serverless pricing

Worker States in the Vast CLI and logs

The worker logs, accessible through the Vast CLI and UI, have more detailed descriptions of worker states to aid in debugging issues. These are described in the table below:

State Name	Description	Billing State
Ready (IDLE)	Worker is fully initialized with model loaded and ready to process tasks	Ready
Loading (LOADING)	Worker is performing docker pull/run operations	Loading
Model Loading (MODEL_LOADING)	Worker is loading the model for the first time in its lifetime	Loading
Inactive (STOPPED)	Worker is created but stopped, not currently processing	Inactive
Destroying (DESTROYING)	Worker is being destroyed and resources are being released	Not Billed
Error (ERROR)	Worker has encountered an error (version mismatch, error message, etc.)	Not Billed
Rebooting (REBOOTING)	Worker is restarting to apply updates or recover from issues	Billed by previous state
Creating (CREATING)	Worker instance creation API call has succeeded	Creating
Created (CREATED)	Worker is created but stopped in database	Creating
Starting (STARTING)	Worker is starting up after initial boot (not first time)	Ready
Stopping (STOPPING)	Worker is in the process of transitioning to stopped state	Inactive
Pending (PENDING)	Rental offer has been accepted, worker setup is pending	Not Billed
Update Ready (UPDATE_READY)	Worker is prepared and ready for update reboot	Ready
Update Rebooting (UPDATE_REBOOTING)	Worker is rebooting after update (non-alive)	Ready
Update Starting (UPDATE_STARTING)	Worker is starting up after update reboot	Ready