Numbers travel through a variety of states within 2600Hz during their lifecycle.

Let’s enumerate those states and then see how they fit together!

Number StatesCopied

discoveryCopied

An internal state used to temporarily hold numbers that are available for users to acquire from the system.

• Populated by API requests to activate numbers for an account that don’t yet exist in the system
• Numbers in discovery do not participate in number hunting
• No number can transition from another state to discovery
• There are no public fields for discovery numbers
• Numbers in discovery are automatically purged from the database after a configurable time
  • system_config/tasks.discovery_expiry_d: How many days a number in the discovery state will remain before being deleted from the database.

port_inCopied

When an account initiates a port request via the APIs, the number is created in the port_in state.

• Numbers in port_in will automatically transition to in_service the first time a call is received from a carrier to that number (the number hunt process)
• Only used for internal number hunting within an account; calls to the number from another account will be routed upstream
• No number can transition from another state to port_in
• Any account can create a port_in number if the number does not yet exist in the system
• The public fields can be managed by the assigned account or its ancestors.
• port_in numbers can only transition to in_service (on first call) or deleted (if the port is canceled).

availableCopied

A number that is routing to the cluster but not yet assigned to an account.

• Any account can transition available numbers to reserved or in_service if the account is in good standing
• available numbers participate in number hunts
• Non-local numbers can be released into the available state but they have to go through an aging period first
• Admin accounts are allowed to create available numbers if their pvt_wnm_allow_additions flag is set to true

reservedCopied

A number assigned to an account but not yet in use (be it a by a callflow, trunkstore, etc).

• reserved numbers do not participate in number hunts
• If the number is coming from the discovery state, the carrier module associated (knm_local, knm_bandwidth, etc) will attempt to acquire the number.
• reserved numbers can be put in_service when:
  • The requesting account is the same as the number’s assigned account
  • The requesting account is an ancestor of the number’s assigned account
  • The requesting account is a descendent of the number’s assigned account
• Accounts can reserve a number when:
  • The requesting account is an ancestor of the number’s assigned account
  • The requesting account is a descendent of the number’s assigned account
• When a number is reserved, the new assignment is added to the number’s history of assignments
• available numbers can be transitioned into the reserved state
• E911 and other features follow the number into reserved but cannot be edited until the number is in_service
• Public fields on the number can be managed by the assigned account or its ancestors

in_serviceCopied

A number assigned to an account and in use by an application such as callflows, trunkstore, etc.

• in_service numbers participate in number hunts
• Can transition to reserved by the assigned account or an ancestor
• E911 and other features follow the number into in_service
• Public fields on the number can be managed by the assigned account or its ancestors

releasedCopied

A temporary state between reserved and in_service before placing the number back into the available pool. Deactivated by default: system_config/number_manager.released_state defaults to available.

• released does not participate in number hunts
• Releasing a reserved or in_service number,
  • when the reserve history is empty: the number will be disconnected then either returned or marked for deletion (see system_config/number_manager.should_permanently_delete)
    • Note: knm_local and knm_mdn numbers always go to deletion regardless of this config flag’s value
  • when the reserve history is not empty, the number is assigned to the previous account in the history
• E911 and all other number features are stripped off the number

port_outCopied

An internal state for releasing numbers. Works similarly to port_in except that inbound requests do not move to in_service.

deletedCopied

An old internal state marking the number as hard-deletable. This state is no longer used: numbers are no longer soft-deleted.