Workflow

A workflow is a sequence of activities that can be executed in a variety of ways. In Elsa, a workflow is represented by an instance of the Workflow class, and is itself an activity. To be precise, it is a composite activity and exposes aRoot property that can be used to define the root activity of the workflow. The Root property is of type IActivity, which is the base interface for all activities.

Workflow creation

The following is an example of instantiating a Workflow object and setting its Root property to a Sequence activity:

var workflow = new Workflow
{
    Root = new Sequence
    {
        Activities = 
        {
            new WriteLine("Hello World!"),
            new WriteLine("Goodbye cruel world!")
        }
    }
};

Workflow execution

When you have an instance of a Workflow object, you can execute it using the WorkflowRunner class. The WorkflowRunner class is responsible for executing a workflow and is the entry point for all workflow execution.:

The following is an example of executing a workflow:

var workflowRunner = services.GetRequiredService<IWorkflowRunner>(); // Or inject it in your constructor.
await workflowRunner.RunAsync(workflow);

Workflow definition

Workflows can be created either from code or using the designer. When created using the designer, the workflow definition is stored in JSON form and us used to reconstruct an actual Workflow object at runtime.

Workflow instance

A workflow instance is an instance of a workflow that is currently being executed and is represented by an instance of the WorkflowState class. A workflow instance is created when a workflow is executed. In other words, a workflow instance is a runtime representation of a workflow.

Workflow execution context

A workflow execution context is a data structure that is passed around during workflow execution. It contains the workflow instance, the current activity, the current input and output, and more.