Tasks represent the discrete units of work an integration performs, such as a single configured query in a database extractor. CDF tracks each task's run history, including when it started and stopped. You can list task history or sync updates since a previous checkpoint.
A task is a named unit of work in an integration, reported by the extractor. Each time a task starts or stops, CDF records a history entry so you can spot gaps or failures.
A task can be one of three kinds. A scheduled task runs at set intervals or on a cron expression. A continuous task starts when the extractor starts and is expected to run until the extractor stops. A startup task runs once, before any continuous or scheduled tasks, and is typically used for initialization. The task's reported type is continuous for continuous tasks, or batch for scheduled and startup tasks, which both run for a finite period.
Use sync rather than repeatedly listing history when you're building a live dashboard or alerting system, since it's designed for incremental polling with a cursor.