Workflows

Ferrite workflows coordinate durable steps without keeping a process alive for the lifetime of the work. Each transition is persisted, retryable, and visible through the same application logs and resources as the rest of your app.

Model a workflow

Store the workflow instance, publish the next runnable step to a private queue, and append an event for each accepted transition. Use a transaction when a state change and its outbox record must commit together.

checkout.received
  → inventory.reserved
  → payment.pending
  → payment.completed
  → fulfillment.requested

The worker treats the stored state as authoritative. A duplicate payment webhook or redelivered queue lease observes that the transition already completed and returns the prior result.

Use the workflow package

ferrite-workflows provides the deployable workflow service used by the sample stack. The commerce fulfillment and secure rollout samples show waits, approvals, retries, and compensating actions.

Design rules

• Give every external event a stable idempotency key.
• Persist intent before publishing work.
• Make each step safe to retry independently.
• Put attempt limits and dead-letter handling on every queue.
• Record the reason for a terminal failure; do not leave an instance merely “stuck.”

Continue with Transactions, Webhooks, and Reliability.