Reusable Inputs

Reusable inputs let you define a named group of typed inputs once at the namespace level and reference them in any flow.

Define a reusable input set

Open the namespace where you want the reusable input set to live, select the Reusable Inputs tab, and click Create. Give the set an id, an optional description, and declare the inputs the same way you would in a flow.

id: ad_credentials
namespace: company.team
description: Active Directory credentials required by provisioning flows.
inputs:
  - id: username
    type: STRING
    required: true
    displayName: AD Username

  - id: domain
    type: SELECT
    required: true
    values:
      - corp.example.com
      - eu.example.com

  - id: password
    type: SECRET
    required: true
    displayName: AD Password

The set’s id must start with a letter or digit and may contain letters, digits, dots, hyphens, and underscores. All flow input types are valid inside a set, including FORM groups.

Each time you save, Kestra stores a new revision.

Reference a set in a flow

Add an input of type: REUSABLE_INPUTS to any flow and set ref to the set’s id. Kestra inlines each child input before the execution starts, prefixing its id with the reference id (<refId>.<childId>).

id: provision_ad_account
namespace: company.team

inputs:
  - id: environment
    type: SELECT
    values: [staging, production]

  - id: ad
    type: REUSABLE_INPUTS
    ref: ad_credentials

tasks:
  - id: log
    type: io.kestra.plugin.core.log.Log
    message: |
      User: {{ inputs.ad.username }}
      Domain: {{ inputs.ad.domain }}

The set expands into three inputs — ad.username, ad.domain, and ad.password — available alongside environment in the execution form.

Access input values

Reference each child input as {{ inputs.<refId>.<childId> }}, where refId is the id of the REUSABLE_INPUTS input in the flow and childId is the id from the set definition.

{{ inputs.ad.username }}
{{ inputs.ad.domain }}
{{ inputs.ad.password }}

Set properties

Pin a specific revision

To lock a flow to a particular version of a set — for example, to avoid pulling in a breaking change before your team has reviewed it — set revision:

inputs:
  - id: ad
    type: REUSABLE_INPUTS
    ref: ad_credentials
    revision: 3

Use a set from a parent namespace

A set defined in company is available to any flow in company, company.team, company.team.infra, and any other descendant namespace. If a child namespace defines a set with the same id, the child’s definition takes precedence over the parent’s. To use a set from a different branch of the hierarchy, set namespace explicitly:

inputs:
  - id: ad
    type: REUSABLE_INPUTS
    ref: ad_credentials
    namespace: company

RBAC

The REUSABLE_INPUTS resource controls who can manage reusable input sets. Flows that reference a set require only normal flow-execution permissions — the expansion happens server-side before the execution form is rendered.

Validation

Kestra does not check whether a referenced set exists at flow save time — the existence check runs at execution creation. If the set is missing, execution creation fails with an error naming the missing set and the namespace hierarchy that was searched.

A reusable input set’s inputs are expanded in a single pass. If a set’s inputs list contains a REUSABLE_INPUTS entry, that nested reference is not recursively expanded and the execution form will fail to render it correctly. Keep set definitions flat.