Event Sourcing

This guide explores how the Workflow DevKit uses event sourcing internally. Understanding these concepts is helpful for debugging and building observability tools, but is not required to use workflows. For getting started with workflows, see the getting started guides for your framework.

The Workflow DevKit uses event sourcing to track all state changes in workflow executions. Every mutation creates an event that is persisted to the event log, and entity state is derived by replaying these events.

This page explains the event sourcing model and entity lifecycles.

Event Sourcing Overview

Event sourcing is a persistence pattern where state changes are stored as a sequence of events rather than by updating records in place. The current state of any entity is reconstructed by replaying its events from the beginning.

Benefits for durable workflows:

Complete audit trail: Every state change is recorded with its timestamp and context
Debugging: Replay the exact sequence of events that led to any state
Consistency: Events provide a single source of truth for all entity state
Recoverability: State can be reconstructed from the event log after failures

In the Workflow DevKit, the following entity types are managed through events:

Runs: Workflow execution instances (materialized in storage)
Steps: Individual atomic operations within a workflow (materialized in storage)
Hooks: Suspension points that can receive external data (materialized in storage)
Waits: Sleep or delay operations (tracked via events only, not materialized)

Entity Lifecycles

Each entity type follows a specific lifecycle defined by the events that can affect it. Events transition entities between states, and certain states are terminal—once reached, no further transitions are possible.

In the diagrams below, purple nodes indicate terminal states that cannot be transitioned out of.

Run Lifecycle

A run represents a single execution of a workflow function. Runs begin in pending state when created, transition to running when execution starts, and end in one of three terminal states.

Run states:

pending: Created but not yet executing
running: Actively executing workflow code
completed: Finished successfully with an output value
failed: Terminated due to an unrecoverable error
cancelled: Explicitly cancelled by the user or system

Step Lifecycle

A step represents a single invocation of a step function. Steps can retry on failure, either transitioning back to pending via step_retrying or being re-executed directly with another step_started event.

Step states:

pending: Created but not yet executing, or waiting to retry
running: Actively executing step code
completed: Finished successfully with a result value
failed: Terminated after exhausting all retry attempts
cancelled: Reserved for future use (not currently emitted)

The step_retrying event is optional. Steps can retry without it - the retry mechanism works regardless of whether this event is emitted. You may see back-to-back step_started events in logs when a step retries after a timeout or when the error is not explicitly captured. See Errors and Retries for more on how retries work.

When present, the step_retrying event moves a step back to pending state and records the error that caused the retry. This provides two benefits:

Cleaner observability: The event log explicitly shows retry transitions rather than consecutive step_started events
Error history: The error that triggered the retry is preserved for debugging

Hook Lifecycle

A hook represents a suspension point that can receive external data, created by createHook(). Hooks enable workflows to pause and wait for external events, user interactions, or HTTP requests. Webhooks (created with createWebhook()) are a higher-level abstraction built on hooks that adds automatic HTTP request/response handling.

Hooks can receive multiple payloads while active and are disposed when no longer needed.

Hook states:

active: Ready to receive payloads (hook exists in storage)
disposed: No longer accepting payloads (hook is deleted from storage)

Unlike other entities, hooks don't have a status field—the states above are conceptual. An "active" hook is one that exists in storage, while "disposed" means the hook has been deleted. When a hook_disposed event is created, the hook record is removed rather than updated.

While a hook is active, its token is reserved and cannot be used by other workflows. This prevents token reuse conflicts across concurrent workflows. When a hook is disposed (either explicitly or when its workflow completes), the token is released and can be claimed by future workflows. Hooks are automatically disposed when a workflow reaches a terminal state (completed, failed, or cancelled). The hook_disposed event is only needed for explicit disposal before workflow completion.

See Hooks & Webhooks for more on how hooks and webhooks work.

Wait Lifecycle

A wait represents a sleep operation created by sleep(). Waits track when a delay period has elapsed.

Wait states:

waiting: Delay period has not yet elapsed
completed: Delay period has elapsed, workflow can resume

Unlike Runs, Steps, and Hooks, waits are conceptual entities tracked only through events. There is no separate "Wait" record in storage that can be queried—the wait state is derived entirely from the wait_created and wait_completed events in the event log.

Event Types Reference

Events are categorized by the entity type they affect. Each event contains metadata including a timestamp and a correlationId that links the event to a specific entity:

Step events use the stepId as the correlation ID
Hook events use the hookId as the correlation ID
Wait events use the waitId as the correlation ID
Run events do not require a correlation ID since the runId itself identifies the entity

Run Events

Event	Description
`run_created`	Creates a new workflow run in `pending` state. Contains the deployment ID, workflow name, input arguments, and optional execution context.
`run_started`	Transitions the run to `running` state when execution begins.
`run_completed`	Transitions the run to `completed` state with the workflow's return value.
`run_failed`	Transitions the run to `failed` state with error details and optional error code.
`run_cancelled`	Transitions the run to `cancelled` state. Can be triggered from `pending` or `running` states.

Step Events

Event	Description
`step_created`	Creates a new step in `pending` state. Contains the step name and serialized input arguments.
`step_started`	Transitions the step to `running` state. Includes the current attempt number for retries.
`step_completed`	Transitions the step to `completed` state with the step's return value.
`step_failed`	Transitions the step to `failed` state with error details. The step will not be retried.
`step_retrying`	(Optional) Transitions the step back to `pending` state for retry. Contains the error that caused the retry and optional delay before the next attempt. When not emitted, retries appear as consecutive `step_started` events.

Hook Events

Event	Description
`hook_created`	Creates a new hook in `active` state. Contains the hook token and optional metadata.
`hook_received`	Records that a payload was delivered to the hook. The hook remains `active` and can receive more payloads.
`hook_disposed`	Deletes the hook from storage (conceptually transitioning to `disposed` state). The token is released for reuse by future workflows.

Wait Events

Event	Description
`wait_created`	Creates a new wait in `waiting` state. Contains the timestamp when the wait should complete.
`wait_completed`	Transitions the wait to `completed` state when the delay period has elapsed.

Terminal States

Terminal states represent the end of an entity's lifecycle. Once an entity reaches a terminal state, no further events can transition it to another state.

Run terminal states:

completed: Workflow finished successfully
failed: Workflow encountered an unrecoverable error
cancelled: Workflow was explicitly cancelled

Step terminal states:

completed: Step finished successfully
failed: Step failed after all retry attempts

Hook terminal states:

disposed: Hook has been deleted from storage and is no longer active

Wait terminal states:

completed: Delay period has elapsed

Attempting to create an event that would transition an entity out of a terminal state will result in an error. This prevents inconsistent state and ensures the integrity of the event log.

Event Correlation

Events use a correlationId to link related events together. For step, hook, and wait events, the correlation ID identifies the specific entity instance:

Step events share the same correlationId (the step ID) across all events for that step execution
Hook events share the same correlationId (the hook ID) across all events for that hook
Wait events share the same correlationId (the wait ID) across creation and completion

Run events do not require a correlation ID since the runId itself provides the correlation.

This correlation enables:

Querying all events for a specific step, hook, or wait
Building timelines of entity lifecycle transitions
Debugging by tracing the complete history of any entity

Entity IDs

All entities in the Workflow DevKit use a consistent ID format: a 4-character prefix followed by an underscore and a ULID (Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifier).

Entity	Prefix	Example
Run	`wrun_`	`wrun_01HXYZ123ABC456DEF789GHJ`
Step	`step_`	`step_01HXYZ123ABC456DEF789GHJ`
Hook	`hook_`	`hook_01HXYZ123ABC456DEF789GHJ`
Wait	`wait_`	`wait_01HXYZ123ABC456DEF789GHJ`
Event	`evnt_`	`evnt_01HXYZ123ABC456DEF789GHJ`
Stream	`strm_`	`strm_01HXYZ123ABC456DEF789GHJ`

Why this format?

Prefixes enable introspection: Given any ID, you can immediately identify what type of entity it refers to. This makes debugging, logging, and cross-referencing entities across the system straightforward.
ULIDs enable chronological ordering: Unlike UUIDs, ULIDs encode a timestamp in their first 48 bits, making them lexicographically sortable by creation time. This property is essential for the event log—events are always stored and retrieved in the correct chronological order simply by sorting their IDs.