Cancel Human Task

Cancel Human Task

Type: human-task-cancel  ·  Package: Human Task Activities v1.3.3  ·  Output: object

Cancels a task that’s still open in the Zoan Cloud Tasks inbox. Use it when the process no longer needs the decision: the case was resolved another way, the customer withdrew, or the robot already found the data it was going to ask for. That way nobody wastes time deciding something that no longer matters.

How it works

1. Looks up the taskId task in the environment.
2. If it’s open (pending or claimed), it closes it with status cancelled. The reason (reason) is stored as a comment and shows in the inbox and the audit log.
3. If the task was already closed (decided, cancelled or expired), it leaves it untouched and returns its current status. That makes it safe to call more than once.

A robot can only cancel tasks created by its execution, by another execution of the same process (for example, a retry cleaning up what the previous run left), or tasks linked to the queue item it’s processing. Tasks from other processes are rejected.

Required parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
taskId	string	—	Task id: the id output of Create Human Task. E.g.: task["id"].

Optional parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
reason	string	—	Why it’s cancelled (up to 1000 characters). Shown in the inbox and the audit log.

Output

Returns an object (dictionary) with the task status after the call:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Task id.
status	string	cancelled if it was cancelled now; if it was already closed, its status (completed, cancelled, expired).
title	string	Task title.
decision	string	cancelada if it was cancelled; if it was already decided, the chosen option.
comment	string	The cancellation reason, or the comment of whoever decided.
fields	Dictionary	Fields the person filled in, if the task was already decided.
form	Dictionary	With a form: its name and version. Without a form, null.

Common errors

Message	Cause and fix
'taskId' is required.	taskId is missing.
… HTTP 403: … (TASK_NOT_OWNED)	The task belongs to another process. Cancel it from that process or from the Tasks inbox.
… HTTP 404: … (task not found)	The id isn’t valid, the task belongs to another environment or wasn’t created by a robot.
Human task activities require a Zoan Automation runtime context. Missing: …	The process isn’t running from Zoan Cloud or from the Designer signed in.

Errors arrive with the prefix “Could not cancel the human task: ”.

Example

The robot asks for a piece of data to be validated, but keeps looking for it on its own; if it finds it, it cancels the task:

Create Human Task   title = "Confirm the delivery address for order #0001"
                    data = { "Customer": "Test customer" }
                    assignRole = "logistics"   → output: task
 ... the robot checks another system and finds the address ...
Cancel Human Task   taskId = task["id"]
                    reason = "The address was found in the order system"
                    → output: closing
If   condition = closing["status"] == "completed"
 └─ then:
      Log   level = info   message = "Someone had already confirmed the address"

Cancelling from the robot doesn’t trigger onCompleteProcess

If the task was created with onCompleteProcess, cancelling it with this activity does not run that process: if the robot cancels the task, it’s because it no longer needs the decision. If the task is linked to a queue (queueName), the item is released anyway so it doesn’t stay waiting: it returns to the queue with Decision.Status = "cancelled", or it’s abandoned if you configured the queue that way.

On the other hand, if a person cancels the task from Zoan Cloud, onCompleteProcess does run (it arrives with decision = "cancelled").

Related activities

• Create Human Task — create the task.
• Wait for Human Task — wait for the decision (it can cancel on its own when the time runs out).