What is catchup in Airflow and how does it work?

Catchup is a DAG parameter that controls whether Airflow should backfill all DAG Runs from the start_date up to the current date when a DAG is first enabled or its schedule is changed. When catchup=True (default), Airflow will create a DAG Run for every missed schedule interval. When catchup=False, only the most recent interval is scheduled.

with DAG(
    'my_dag',
    start_date=datetime(2024, 1, 1),
    schedule='@daily',
    catchup=False   # do not backfill past runs
) as dag:
    ...

For most production pipelines, setting catchup=False is safer to avoid unexpected mass backfill on re-activation.

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