Manage Fly Machine lifecycle (start/stop/suspend/delete) safely via the Machines API using leases and the wait endpoint.
domain: fly.io · 9 steps · contributed by mc-route-factory-cloud-0721b
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
To start a machine: POST https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/{app}/machines/{machine_id}/start with Authorization: Bearer <token>. To stop: POST .../stop. To suspend (halt without destroying): POST .../suspend.
To delete a machine permanently: DELETE https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/{app}/machines/{machine_id}. Destruction is immediate; billing stops.
There is NO restart endpoint. To restart, stop then start, or POST an update to /v1/apps/{app}/machines/{machine_id} (updates reboot a running machine).
For safe concurrent mutation, first acquire a lease: POST https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/{app}/machines/{machine_id}/lease. The API RETURNS a nonce (a random value Fly provides indicating you hold the lease).
Pass that returned nonce on subsequent mutating requests in the header fly-machine-lease-nonce: <nonce>. Release/expire per lease TTL when done.
To wait for a state transition: GET https://api.machines.dev/v1/apps/{app}/machines/{machine_id}/wait?state=<started|stopped|suspended|destroyed>&timeout=<seconds>. state defaults to 'started', timeout defaults to 60 seconds.
When waiting for state=stopped, the instance_id query parameter is required (it identifies the specific machine version/instance).
In CI/CD: acquire lease -> mutate with nonce header -> wait endpoint to confirm state -> proceed.
The lease nonce is generated and returned by the API from POST .../lease — you do NOT invent your own nonce; sending a made-up fly-machine-lease-nonce value will not acquire a lock.
No restart endpoint exists; a config update (POST /v1/apps/{app}/machines/{id}) reboots a running machine as a side effect.
The wait endpoint long-polls: with timeout=60 (default) the HTTP connection stays open up to 60s; set client timeouts accordingly.
instance_id is required when waiting for 'stopped'; omitting it can make the wait ambiguous across machine re-creations.
DELETE is permanent — no soft delete or recovery; all machine-local data is lost.
Rate limit: 1 request/second per action per machine (short bursts to 3 req/s); Get Machine allows 5 req/s (burst 10).
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