Prefect 3 UI: Bring back list-level pause/resume toggle and show effective active status in /deployments

[zzstoatzz]

This discussion was created from a Slack thread conversation.

Original Thread: https://prefect-community.slack.com/archives/C04DZJC94DC/p1767620057032299

---

Context: A user on Prefect 3.4.24 (self-hosted on AWS Fargate, reproducible on local server as well) notes that the Prefect 3 UI lost useful ergonomics compared to 2.x for deployment activity management. In 2.x, the /deployments list view showed a toggle to pause/resume and visually greyed out paused deployments. In 3.x, the 'greyed out' status only reflects the deployment-level paused flag, not schedule-level state, and the list-level toggle is gone. The user uses async deployment creation via Flow.ato_deployment(..., paused=True), which does mark a deployment as paused and greys it out initially; however, after resuming, there is no way from the list view to pause again. They also point out that pausing all schedules does not grey out the deployment, so it's not clear at-a-glance which deployments are 'effectively inactive'.

Requested improvements:

1. Reintroduce a list-level pause/resume toggle on the /deployments page so users can quickly pause/resume without diving into detail pages.
2. Add an 'effective active' indicator at the list level: e.g., grey out when deployment is paused OR all schedules are paused. This would restore a fast, at-a-glance signal of inactive deployments similar to Prefect 2.x.

Environment details:

• Prefect 3.4.24 (Python 3.11 image: prefecthq/prefect:3.4.24-python3.11) running on AWS Fargate; also reproduced on local server.
• The functionality of pausing via Flow.ato_deployment(paused=True) and via client pause_deployment/resume_deployment works.
• Schedule-level pause/resume works via CLI/UI, but does not affect the list gray state.

Rationale/Benefit:

• Improves ergonomics for operators managing many deployments.
• Restores a useful operational pattern from 2.x, reducing clicks and making the overview more informative.

Acceptance ideas:

• /deployments list view displays a pause/resume control for each deployment.
• The list visually indicates inactive status when deployment is paused OR all schedules are paused.
• Tooltips or subtext explain which condition is causing the inactive state.

Notes:

• This request is about the UI only; the API and client behavior for deployment-level vs schedule-level pause is fine. The user does not require new server endpoints.

---

This discussion was automatically created by the Marvin bot to preserve valuable community insights.

[rsundqvist]

Image for clarity. Circled toggle disappears when checked. It also controls "greying out" under http://localhost:4200/deployments. I think Marvin did a good enough job summarizing the rest in the issue body.