By default, any task in a DAG can pull any XCom. To achieve "exclusive" or restricted access, you should use the following strategies: 1. TaskFlow API (Automatic Scoping)
: By setting multiple_outputs=True , a task can return a dictionary that Airflow automatically unrolls into separate XCom entries for each key, allowing downstream tasks to pull only what they need. airflow xcom exclusive
: Stores a value in the Airflow metadata database. Many operators (and any @task function) automatically push their return value to a special key called return_value by default. By default, any task in a DAG can pull any XCom
April 8, 2026
# Safe pull – exclusive to 'generate_data' value = ti.xcom_pull(task_ids='generate_data', key='records') airflow xcom exclusive