XM Cloud - Deployment in Queue will be started immediately if an in-progress deployment is cancelled

In XM Cloud, with Cloud CLI, you can create and start a deployment with command dotnet sitecore cloud deployment create -id 8juVRTmGHaiaCy2Fyn56el. There is an another option to submit a deployment request but do not start automatically. This feature is not available from Cloud Portal as of 08/25/23. 

To create a deployment request and not start it immediately, you can execute the below command. 

dotnet sitecore cloud deployment create -id 8juVRTmGHaiaCy2Fyn56el --no-start

When --no-start option is used, a new deployment will be created and status will be in queued state. 

To start the deployment, you can run dotnet sitecore cloud deployment start -id <<deploymentId>>. 

Scenario: If there is an on-going deployment in XM Cloud and you schedule another deployment requuest with --no-start option for the future release and if for some reason, you cancel the on-going deployment, then the on-going deployment will be stopped but the queued deployment request will automatically start even though we have not executed the start request. This might have been designed in this way or may be a bug in XM Cloud Deployment job. Time to check with Sitecore support!!!

Update: Sitecore support confirmed that it is reproducible, and they are working on a fix. 

Next Update: We've been able to reproduce the scenario you reported and sought clarification from the product team regarding the observed behavior. Based on their response, this behavior is intended. Specifically, the --no-start option doesn't influence the deployment queue. If a running deployment is cancelled, completed, or fails, the next deployment in the queue will always be triggered. This functionality is by design.

In progress with one request is queued

Queued request started automatically if the previous deployment is cancelled