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Workflow State Management

Summary​

State transitions are encoded as aggregate methods and command guards. No state-machine package or declarative transition table is used.

State transitions​

Guards​

Definition publication requires a draft with steps. Task decisions require a Running instance and Pending task. These guards provide duplicate-decision protection.

Recorded but unreachable states​

Definition Archived, instance Cancelled, task Delegated/Skipped and action Cancel are enum values without complete transition paths in commands and aggregates.

Consistency boundary​

Aggregate changes, action records, audit/timeline rows and newly mapped outbox messages are saved through one DbContext unit of work.

Limitations​

No explicit concurrency token protects competing requests. Rejection can leave sibling tasks Pending. Skipped stages create no state record.

Requires Confirmation​

Concurrency policy, cancellation, archival, sibling-task finalization and skipped-stage audit semantics require confirmation.

Source References​

  • microservices/src/workflow-service/Domain/Common/Enums.cs
  • microservices/src/workflow-service/Domain/Workflow/WorkflowDefinition.cs
  • microservices/src/workflow-service/Domain/Workflow/WorkflowInstance.cs
  • microservices/src/workflow-service/Application/Commands/WorkflowInstanceCommands.cs

See Also​

Keywords​

Workflow architecture, approval engine, Workflow Service, technical foundation.

Revision Information​

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