Step 1: Hello World

Let's start with the simplest possible pipeline—one that just prints "Hello, World!" every second.

---

Create the Pipeline

Create a file called hello.yaml:

input:
  generate:
    interval: 1s
    mapping: |
      root.message = "Hello, World!"

output:
  stdout: {}

Check it before you run anything. This is offline and needs no node, no account and no network:

expanso-edge validate hello.yaml

---

Run It

hello.yaml is a pipeline config. Expanso executes pipelines as jobs, so wrap it in a job spec that gives it a name and a type:

hello-job.yaml

name: hello-world
type: pipeline
config:
  input:
    generate:
      interval: 1s
      mapping: |
        root.message = "Hello, World!"
  output:
    stdout: {}

Then deploy it to Expanso Cloud, which schedules it onto a connected edge node and keeps it managed by the control plane. This series is written against that route.

Prerequisites: an Expanso Cloud workspace, a saved CLI profile with an API key, and at least one connected edge node. One-time setup is in Deploy to Cloud.

expanso-cli job deploy hello-job.yaml
expanso-cli job logs hello-world

Without Expanso Cloud

Expanso Edge also runs standalone: expanso-edge run --local starts an agent with no control-plane connection and its own API on port 9010, which you can deploy the same job spec to. That mode is documented separately in Local Mode — the later steps here assume the Cloud route, so follow Local Mode's own pages rather than mixing the two.

---

Verify It Worked

You should see a message every second:

{"message":"Hello, World!"}
{"message":"Hello, World!"}
{"message":"Hello, World!"}

If nothing appears, the job was accepted but is not executing. job deploy returns after the control plane stores the job, not after a node picks it up, so check the assignment:

expanso-cli job describe hello-world
expanso-cli node list

An empty node list means no node is connected to run it. More failure modes are in Testing & Debugging.

Stop the job when you are done:

expanso-cli job stop hello-world

--config does not run a pipeline

expanso-edge run --config loads agent settings, not pipeline YAML. Passing a pipeline config to it reports the input, pipeline and output keys as unknown fields and ignores them: the agent starts and your pipeline never runs.

---

What Just Happened?

Component	What It Does
input.generate	Creates data from nothing (no external source needed)
interval: 1s	Generates a new message every 1 second
mapping	Uses Bloblang to define the message structure
output.stdout	Prints each message to your terminal

---

What's Next?

👉 Step 2: Make a Change