Difference between short-running and long-running Flows

A Flow can either be executed as short-running or long-running.

Short-running and long-running Flows have the same capabilities, except that a short-running Flow can return a result directly to the caller while a long-running Flow must store its output somewhere else so it can be fetched manually after execution has completed.

Streaming Flows are short running Flows that continually streams data back to the client.

The differences between short-running, long-running and streaming Flows are listed below.

Feature	Short-running	Long-running	Streaming
Max execution time	300 seconds (5 minutes)	2 hours	300 seconds (5 minutes)
Can use the Return action to return a result directly to the caller	Yes	No	No
Can use the Return HTTP File response action to return a file directly to the caller	Yes	No	No
Can use the Yield return action to stream data back to the caller.	No	No	Yes
Requires polling for completion	No	Yes	No