An External Worker Task in BPMN or CMMN is a task where the custom logic of that task is executed externally to Flowable, i.e. on another server. When the process or case engine arrives at such a task, it will create an external job, which is exposed over the REST API. Through this REST API, the job can be acquired and locked. Once locked, the custom logic is responsible for signalling over REST that the work is done and the process or case can continue.
This project makes implementing such custom logic in Javascript or Typescript easy by not having the worry about the low-level details of the REST API and focus on the actual custom business logic. Integrations for other languages are available, too.
The library allows to either authenticate with basic authentication with the parameter auth
requiring username
and password
.
To use a personal access token you can specify the parameter auth
and add token
as a parameter.
Alternatively, customizeAxios
can be used to directly customize the REST client.
To install the external worker library, execute the following command:
npm install @flowable-oss/external-worker-client
The usage with Flowable Trial is simpler, since everything is pre-configured. However, it's required to either use the user credentials or to pre-configure a personal access token.
import {ExternalWorkerAcquireJobResponse, ExternalWorkerClient, WorkerResultBuilder} from "@flowable-oss/external-worker-client";
const externalWorkerClient = new ExternalWorkerClient({
auth: {
token: '<personal-access-token>'
}
});
const subscription = externalWorkerClient.subscribe({
topic: "myTopic",
numberOfTasks: 1,
callbackHandler(job: ExternalWorkerAcquireJobResponse, workResultBuilder: WorkerResultBuilder) {
console.log(`Execute job: ${job.id}`);
return workResultBuilder.success();
}
});
The following is an example how you can connect to a Flowable instance running at http://host.docker.internal:8090
and process all messages retrieved on the topic myTopic
:
import {ExternalWorkerAcquireJobResponse, ExternalWorkerClient, WorkerResultBuilder} from "@flowable-oss/external-worker-client";
const externalWorkerClient = new ExternalWorkerClient({
flowableHost: 'http://host.docker.internal:8090',
auth: {
username: 'admin',
password: 'test'
}
});
const subscription = externalWorkerClient.subscribe({
topic: "myTopic",
numberOfTasks: 1,
callbackHandler(job: ExternalWorkerAcquireJobResponse, workResultBuilder: WorkerResultBuilder) {
console.log(`Execute job: ${job.id}`);
return workResultBuilder.success();
}
});