Evaluate Workflow Engine Workflow Engine is an embeddable .NET library that adds business process automation to any application with guaranteed backward compatibility across versions.
License Key Workflow Engine requires a license key for production use; this page covers obtaining a trial or commercial key, registration, free edition limits, and expiry.
Workflow Engine Editions Workflow Engine ships in seven editions: Free, Team, Complete, and the NEO family. Compare their use cases and feature sets.
Action An action is named business logic that Workflow Engine executes from an activity implementation while it runs a process instance.
Activity An activity is a stable state where a process instance waits for a command, a timer, or an external event before moving forward.
Annotation An annotation is a named string value attached to an activity or transition in a scheme - it serves as custom metadata that code can read at runtime.
Command A command is a named trigger that moves a process instance from one activity to another by firing a matching transition.
Condition A condition is a guard on a transition that determines whether the process instance can move to the next activity.
Localization Localization maps Workflow Engine states, commands, parameters, and other scheme names to culture-specific text shown by an application.
Parameter A parameter is a variable attached to a process instance that carries business data through each step of the workflow from start to finish.
Persistence Persistence connects Workflow Engine to a database through separate contracts for runtime process data and workflow scheme data.
Process Instance A process instance is one execution of a scheme - it tracks the current activity, parameters, and history for a single business object.
Process Logs Process logs are an optional diagnostic trace of actions, conditions, transitions, and errors during process execution.
Rule A rule is a named check that WorkflowRuntime evaluates to decide whether a specific user is allowed to execute a command at the current activity.
Scheme A scheme is the workflow blueprint that Workflow Engine parses and builds into the process definition followed by each process instance.
Subprocess A subprocess is a child process instance created by a ForkStart transition and optionally merged into its parent through a ForkEnd transition.
Timer A timer fires a transition automatically after a delay or on a schedule, without user interaction. Supports five timer types, calendar options, and recovery.
Transition A transition connects two activities and defines what causes a process instance to move between them, including trigger types, conditions, and restrictions.
Work Calendar A work calendar defines which days and hours count as working time, so that timers configured with calendar-aware notation fire only during business hours.
Workflow Engine Concepts All Workflow Engine concepts: schemes, instances, activities, transitions, commands, timers, conditions, actions, rules, parameters, runtime, persistence.
Workflow Runtime Workflow Runtime is Workflow Engine's main API facade for configuring services and creating, executing, querying, and persisting processes.
Create Your First Workflow Design a minimal workflow scheme with two activities, one transition, and one command, then save it and create a process instance.
Framework-Agnostic Install Install Workflow Engine in a console app, worker service, or non-ASP.NET host using NuGet, configure the persistence provider, and start the runtime directly.
Get Started with Workflow Engine Get started with Workflow Engine: define a scheme, then run it as a process instance with persistence, timers, rules, and actions.
Install Workflow Engine Add Workflow Engine to an ASP.NET Core application using NuGet, register services, map endpoints, and verify the setup.
Integrate the Designer Run the Workflow Designer standalone via npx for quick visual editing, or embed it as a frontend component into your React, Angular, Blazor, or vanilla JS app.
Glossary Workflow Engine Glossary defines product, design, runtime, API, operations, and plugin terms together with accepted aliases.
Workflow Engine .NET Workflow Engine is an embeddable .NET library for workflow automation - add durable, auditable business process automation to any .NET or ASP.NET application.
HTTP Requests Call external APIs from your workflow using HTTPRequest action and route based on responses using CheckParameter condition.
Basic Plugin BasicPlugin adds workflow actions and conditions to WorkflowRuntime - HTTP requests, email, subprocesses, parameter manipulation, and role-based authorization.
Managing Parameters Use SetParameter, RemoveParameter, and CheckParameter in BasicPlugin to store, delete, and branch on process parameter values.
Managing Subprocesses Use fork transitions, CheckAllSubprocessesCompleted, and DeleteSubprocesses in BasicPlugin to coordinate child workflow processes.
Basic Plugin Overview Register BasicPlugin with WorkflowRuntime to add HTTP requests, email, process and parameter management, and role-based authorization.
Parallel Approval Use FillApproversUsers and IsApproveComplete in BasicPlugin to implement multi-user parallel approval workflows.
Predefined Actors Register predefined actors with BasicPlugin and resolve their identities to restrict Workflow Engine commands from application code.
Process Control Use SetState, SetActivity, and ExecuteCommand in BasicPlugin to control process execution flow and coordinate between process instances.
Role-Based Authorization Use the CheckRole rule in BasicPlugin to restrict workflow command execution to users who belong to specific application roles.
Sending Emails Use SendEmail action in BasicPlugin to send email notifications at specific workflow stages using SMTP configuration.
Plugins Workflow Engine plugins extend the runtime with pre-built actions, rules, and custom activities for approvals, file operations, BPMN support, and more.

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