# Phase 4: Execution Management - Context

**Gathered:** 2026-01-04
**Status:** Ready for planning

<vision>
## How This Should Work

This is a debugging and monitoring tool for workflow executions. When something goes wrong with a workflow run, you need to investigate deeply — understand what failed, download the full execution data, inspect the details.

Think of it as the command-line forensics tool for n8n workflows. A workflow ran and failed (or succeeded) — now you want to see exactly what happened. Download the execution data to disk for inspection, see the errors, understand which step failed and why.

The focus is on post-execution investigation, not real-time monitoring. Once an execution completes, you can dig into it from the terminal.

</vision>

<essential>
## What Must Be Nailed

- **Downloading execution data** — Being able to save execution results to disk for inspection, debugging, or sharing. This is the most critical capability.
- **Understanding what failed** — Seeing execution details clearly: status, errors, which step failed, what the output was. Make failures visible and understandable.

**Lower priority:**
- Retrying failed executions is nice-to-have but by far the least important feature.

</essential>

<boundaries>
## What's Out of Scope

- **No real-time execution streaming** — Not watching executions as they run live. Just show completed executions.
- **No execution analytics/aggregation** — No statistics, trends, or success rates over time. Just individual execution inspection.
- **No modifying execution data** — Cannot edit or alter execution results. Read-only inspection only.
- **No advanced filtering** — No complex queries like date ranges or workflow combinations. Just basic status filtering (success, error, waiting, etc.).

</boundaries>

<specifics>
## Specific Ideas

**Mirror workflow commands:** Use the same patterns as Phase 3 workflow commands. Consistent UX across the CLI.

Expected commands like:
- `n8n exec list`
- `n8n exec view <id>`
- `n8n exec download <id>`

Same look and feel, same conventions, familiar to anyone who's used the workflow commands.

</specifics>

<notes>
## Additional Context

The core value is post-execution forensics. When you need to answer "what happened?", you should be able to get the full execution data from the terminal without opening the n8n UI.

Priority hierarchy: Download > Inspect > Retry

The download capability is paramount — being able to save execution data locally for detailed analysis, sharing with team members, or keeping records.

</notes>

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*Phase: 04-execution-management*
*Context gathered: 2026-01-04*
