Currently, if you want to run the TTL job in a live CockroachDB instance, the best available method is to update the TTL cron expression to fire in the next minute. However, even with this adjustment, it may still take several minutes before the job actually executes. This makes testing and debugging TTL behavior cumbersome.

This issue proposes adding a knob or built-in—intended primarily for testing purposes—that allows a user to start the TTL job more or less immediately.

We already have similar patterns implemented for other job types that could serve as models for TTL:

• Backup schedules support ALTER BACKUP SCHEDULE ... EXECUTE IMMEDIATELY
  Reference
• Stats jobs have a built-in function that triggers the job directly:
  crdb_internal.reset_sql_stats

Jira issue: CRDB-50678

Epic CRDB-18322