Input and output

In Elsa, input can refer to two things:

• Input to an activity.
• Input to a workflow.

Similarly, output can refer to two things:

• Output from an activity.
• Output from a workflow.

Activity input and output

Activities can receive input and return output.

Input is provided via an activity's ActivityExecutionContext object, which is passed to the ExecuteAsync method.

Output can be set via the ActivityExecutionContext and ExpressionExecutionContext objects

The following is an example of a custom activity that receives input and returns output:

public class Sum : CodeActivity<int>
{
    public Sum(Variable<int> a, Variable<int> b, Variable<int> result)
    {
        A = new(a);
        B = new(b);
        Result = new(result);
    }

    public Input<int> A { get; set; } = default!;
    public Input<int> B { get; set; } = default!;
    
    protected override void Execute(ActivityExecutionContext context)
    {
        var a = A.Get(context);
        var b = B.Get(context);
        
        var result = a + b;
        
        context.SetResult(result);
    }

The above activity receives two inputs, A and B, and returns a single output, Result.

We have seen this activity in action in the previous chapter.

Workflow input and output

Workflows can receive input and return output as well.

Input

For example, imagine we have a workflow, and we want the workflow to echo back the input it received:

var workflow = new WriteLine(context => $"Echo: {context.GetInput<string>("Message")}!");

// Create an input dictionary.
var input = new Dictionary<string, object>
{
    ["Message"] = "Hello World!"
};

// Run the workflow and pass the input.
await workflowRunner.RunAsync(workflow, new RunWorkflowOptions(input: input));

The above workflow receives a single input, Message, and prints it to the console.

Output

The following examples demonstrate how to return output from a workflow:

// Create a workflow that returns some output.
var workflow = new Inline(context => context.WorkflowExecutionContext.Output["Message"] = "Hello from workflow!");

// Run the workflow and hold on to its workflow state.
var result = await workflowRunner.RunAsync(workflow);

// Get the output.
var output = result.WorkflowState.Output["Message"];

Console.WriteLine($"Output: {output}");

The key point here is that, in order to provide output from the workflow to the calling application, we need to set the output on the WorkflowExecutionContext object's Output property. Every activity has access to the WorkflowExecutionContext object via the ActivityExecutionContext parameter that is passed to the ExecuteAsync method.

Designer

The designer provides a convenient way to define input and output for workflows via the Input/Output tab.

To access the inputs, we can use JavaScript expressions. For example, to access the A and B input and calculate their sum, we can use the following expression:

getA() + getB()

To return the output to the code that invokes the workflow, we can use the the Set Output activity:

Invoking workflows

If we publish this workflow and invoke it using the IWorkflowRuntime service, we can access the output via the WorkflowExecutionContext object's Output property:

var input = new Dictionary<string, object>
{
    ["A"] = 1,
    ["B"] = 2
};
var definitionId = "be1e175cce4147d0beaa13ea15f5741c";
var startWorkflowOptions = new StartWorkflowRuntimeOptions(input: input);
var result = await _workflowRuntime.StartWorkflowAsync(definitionId, startWorkflowOptions);
var sum = (int)result.WorkflowExecutionContext.Output["Sum"];