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Workflow Database Limitations

Summary​

The schema supports core Workflow behavior with material persistence, concurrency, tenancy, transaction, testing, governance, retention and evolution gaps.

Persistence​

  • Runtime instance definition/version references and action task references lack foreign keys.
  • Processed-event storage has no active consumer writer.
  • Audit/timeline use string entity references.

Concurrency​

  • No row versions, concurrency tokens, locks or retry handling.
  • State guards do not guarantee single-winner concurrent decisions.

Tenant isolation​

  • Nine entity filters plus administrative bypass are implemented.
  • Outbox and processed events are unfiltered.
  • Missing runtime tenant can become a zero-filtered read context.

Transactions​

  • One normal command save boundary is used, but no explicit transaction/retry policy exists.
  • Relay status and seed definitions use later/separate saves.

Testing​

  • Integrated smoke coverage exists.
  • Mapping, migration, repository, concurrency and tenant-isolation tests were not found.

Governance and retention​

  • No cleanup, archival, partitioning, retention, backup/recovery or production migration procedure in Workflow source.

Schema evolution​

  • One initial migration/snapshot exists.
  • No compatibility storage, drift check or rollback verification was found.

Requires Confirmation​

Concurrency remediation, filter gaps, referential integrity, retention, migration ownership, recovery and database test strategy require confirmation.

Source References​

  • microservices/src/workflow-service/Infrastructure/WorkflowDbContext.cs
  • microservices/src/workflow-service/Infrastructure/Persistence.cs
  • microservices/src/workflow-service/Program.cs
  • microservices/scripts/smoke-workflow.ps1

See Also​

Keywords​

Workflow database, EF Core, Workflow schema.

Revision Information​

  • Status: Draft
  • Last reviewed: 2026-07-20
  • Next review: 2026-10-20