Workflow output definition (2nd preview) not publishing

[LDeakin]

Bug report

I tried the second preview of workflow output definition with 24.10.3, but I can't seem to get it to publish anything.

• Workflow output definition (second preview) #5185

Expected behavior and actual behavior

nextflow.preview.output = true // https://www.nextflow.io/docs/latest/workflow.html#publishing-outputs

process foo {
    output:
    path 'result.txt' // , emit: results

    script:
    """
    touch result.txt
    """
}

workflow {
    main:
    ch_foo = foo()

    publish:
    ch_foo >> 'foo'
}

nextflow run -output-dir results/ workflows/bug2.nf

 N E X T F L O W   ~  version 24.10.3

Launching `workflows/bug2.nf` [maniac_poisson] DSL2 - revision: 94997acd6d

WARN: WORKFLOW OUTPUT DSL IS A PREVIEW FEATURE - SYNTAX AND FUNCTIONALITY CAN CHANGE IN FUTURE RELEASES
executor >  local (1)
[8a/637329] foo [100%] 1 of 1 ✔

I would expect result.txt to appear under results/ somewhere, but results/ is not even created.

Environment

• Nextflow version: 24.10.3
• Java version: 17.0.2
• Operating system: :Linux
• Bash version: 4.4.20

[bentsherman]

Possibly a duplicate of #5460 . Right now you have to include an empty output block for it to run (despite what the docs say).

There were a bunch of bugs with the second preview. Once #5502 is merged we will make a patch release for 24.10

[bentsherman]

This bug was fixed in 25.01.0-edge but will not be backported to 24.10