> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.thoras.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Pausing Autonomous Scaling

> Temporarily halt all autonomous scaling actions cluster-wide

The scaling pause is a system-wide toggle that halts all autonomous scaling
actions across the entire cluster. Thoras continues collecting metrics,
generating predictions, and producing recommendations. No data or model state is
lost while paused.

Only [Autonomous mode](/guides/enabling-autonomous-mode) targets are affected.
Workloads in `recommendation` mode are unaffected.

## Example Use Cases

* **Planned maintenance**: prevent Thoras from modifying resource requests
  during a maintenance window
* **Incident response**: freeze current allocations while investigating a
  production issue
* **Baseline validation**: observe workload behavior without scaling, such as
  during load testing

## Pausing and Resuming

Open the **Manage Cluster** dropdown in the dashboard header and select **Pause
autonomous scaling**. A flyout displays the count of autonomous targets that
will be affected and asks for confirmation before applying.

To resume, open the same dropdown, selects **Resume autonomous scaling**, then
confirm.

## Pod Behavior

**When you pause scaling**, workloads' running pods retain the resource requests
last applied by Thoras. If a pod restarts while scaling is paused, it starts
with the requests defined in the deployment spec, and Thoras will not apply any
adjustments until scaling is resumed.

**When you resume scaling** (un-pause), the Thoras operator restarts then
reconciles autonomous targets, setting requests to the latest suggestion for
pods which need resizing.

## Visual Indicators

### Banner

When paused, a persistent amber banner appears at the top of the dashboard:

> Autonomous scaling actions are paused. Targets will not be right-sized.

The banner links directly to the resume flyout so you can re-enable scaling
without navigating away.

### Scaling History

A target's scaling and suggestions timeline indicates which suggestions were
made while the system was in the scaling paused state, and which, if any,
actions would have been applied had scaling not been paused.

## Persistence

The pause state is stored in the `thoras-operator-system-config` ConfigMap in
the Thoras namespace. If the ConfigMap does not exist, the system defaults to
**not paused**.

Toggling the state triggers a rolling restart of both the operator and API
server to load the new configuration. There is a brief period of unavailability
for the API server and operator as they restart.

Because the state lives in a ConfigMap, **it survives pod restarts and
upgrades**. The cluster remains paused until explicitly resumed.

## Advanced

As an alternative to using the dashboard, scaling pause state can be toggled
manually by modifying the ConfigMap `thoras-operator-system-config` then
restarting `thoras-api-server` and `thoras-operator`.