Reflow

Reflow is a very basic workflow helper, it takes a state getter/setter function and a workflow definition, and returns a transition function which will transition an object between states, following the rules of the workflow and calling any workflow state transition logic provided.

Contrived Example:

var reflow = require("reflow");
 
//Define a function that knows how to get the current state from your object type
function getState(o, callback) { 
    callback(null, o.state); 
};
 
// Define a function that knows how to set the state for your object type.
function setState(o, state, callback) { 
    o.state = state; 
    callback(null, o);
};
 
// Define a workflow, this one has 3 states, start, middle, end. Each state
// may transition to the next, and then the workflow loops around to the start.
 
var workflow = {
    start : {
        middle : {}
    }, 
 
    middle : {
        end : {}
    },
 
    end : {
        start : {}
    }
    
};
 
//Create a transition function from getter, setter and workflow
var transition = reflow(getState, setState, workflow);
 
//Create an object with a state
var obj = { state : 'start' };
 
//transition our object from start to middle
transition(obj, 'middle', function(err, obj) {
    if(err) console.log(err);
    console.log("New state is:", obj.state);
});
 

Defining workflows

Workflows are simply a double-nested javascript object with the first tier defining states, and the second defining transitions.

Each state defines allowed target states (transitions), which can have conditions and triggers. Conditions and triggers are functions which are invoked before the transition to check it is allowed, or after to perform some activity on transition.

Condition functions

Condition functions take the object, target state and a callback which should be invoked with an error, and a boolean value, to allow or block transition.

function myCondition(obj, newState, callback) {
    if(obj.someCondition) {
        return callback(null, true); // allow the transition
    } else {
        return callback(null, false); // disallow the transition
    }
});

Trigger functions

Trigger functions take the object and a callback, and perform any side-effect of the transition.

function myCondition(obj, callback) {
    //Do something after the transition
    return callback(null);  
    }
});

A more involved workflow with triggers and conditions

var orderWorkflow = {
    received : {
        assembly : {
            conditions : [ checkStock, checkBacklog ],
            triggers : [ sendAssemblyTicket ]
        }
    }, 
 
    assembly : {
        received : {
            triggers : [ notifyAccountsRejected ]
        },
        shipping : {
            conditions : [ checkBuild ],
            triggers : [ notifyAccountsBuildComplete ]
        }
    },
 
    shipping : {
        received : {
            trigger : [ notifyAccountsReceived ]
        }
    },
 
    received : {}
};

Passing contexts to triggers and conditions

any arguments passed to the transition function after the callback will be passed as extra positional arguments to both condition and trigger functions, this is handy when you need to pass context information to triggers and conditions.