@llamaindex/workflow-core

LlamaIndex Workflows TS

⚠️ DEPRECATED: This package is no longer maintained. Please use LlamaAgents (Python Workflows) instead.

🌊 is a simple, lightweight workflow engine, in TypeScript.

• Minimal core API (<=2kb)
• 100% Type safe
• Event-driven, stream oriented programming
• Support multiple JS runtime/framework

Usage

npm i @llamaindex/workflow-core

yarn add @llamaindex/workflow-core

pnpm add @llamaindex/workflow-core

bun add @llamaindex/workflow-core

deno add npm:@llamaindex/workflow-core

Demos

For examples, check out the demo folder.

First, define events

import { workflowEvent } from "@llamaindex/workflow-core";

const startEvent = workflowEvent<string>();
const stopEvent = workflowEvent<1 | -1>();

Connect events with workflow

import { createWorkflow } from "@llamaindex/workflow-core";

const convertEvent = workflowEvent();

const workflow = createWorkflow();

workflow.handle([startEvent], (start) => {
  return convertEvent.with(Number.parseInt(start.data, 10));
});
workflow.handle([convertEvent], (convert) => {
  return stopEvent.with(convert.data > 0 ? 1 : -1);
});

Trigger workflow

import { pipeline } from "node:stream/promises";

const { stream, sendEvent } = workflow.createContext();
sendEvent(startEvent.with());
const result = await pipeline(stream, async function (source) {
  for await (const event of source) {
    if (stopEvent.include(event)) {
      return "stop received!";
    }
  }
});
console.log(result); // stop received!
// or
const allEvents = await stream.until(stopEvent).toArray();

Helper Functions for Common Tasks

There are helper functions to make working with workflows even simpler:

import {
  runWorkflow,
  runAndCollect,
  runWorkflowWithFilter,
} from "@llamaindex/workflow-core/stream/run";

// Run workflow and get final result
const result = await runWorkflow(workflow, startEvent.with("42"), stopEvent);

// Run workflow and collect all events
const allEvents = await runAndCollect(
  workflow,
  startEvent.with("42"),
  stopEvent,
);

Fan-out (Parallelism)

By default, we provide a simple fan-out utility to run multiple workflows in parallel

• context.sendEvent will emit a new event to current workflow
• context.stream will return a stream of events emitted by the sub-workflow

let condition = false;
workflow.handle([startEvent], async (context, start) => {
  const { sendEvent, stream } = context;
  for (let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    sendEvent(convertEvent.with(i));
  }
  // You define the condition to stop the workflow
  const results = await stream
    .until(() => condition)
    .filter(convertStopEvent)
    .toArray();
  console.log(results.length); // 10
  return stopEvent.with();
});

workflow.handle([convertEvent], (convert) => {
  if (convert.data === 9) {
    condition = true;
  }
  return convertStopEvent.with(/* ... */);
});

With RxJS, or any stream API

Workflow is event-driven, you can use any stream API to handle the workflow like rxjs

import { from, pipe } from "rxjs";

const { stream, sendEvent } = workflow.createContext();

from(stream)
  .pipe(filter((ev) => eventSource(ev) === messageEvent))
  .subscribe((ev) => {
    console.log(ev.data);
  });

sendEvent(fileParseWorkflow.startEvent(directory));

Connect with Server endpoint

Workflow can be used as middleware in any server framework, like express, hono, fastify, etc.

import { Hono } from "hono";
import { serve } from "@hono/node-server";
import { createHonoHandler } from "@llamaindex/workflow-core/interrupter/hono";
import {
  agentWorkflow,
  startEvent,
  stopEvent,
} from "../workflows/tool-call-agent.js";

const app = new Hono();

app.post(
  "/workflow",
  createHonoHandler(
    agentWorkflow,
    async (ctx) => startEvent(await ctx.req.text()),
    stopEvent,
  ),
);

serve(app, ({ port }) => {
  console.log(`Server started at http://localhost:${port}`);
});

Error Handling

You can use signal in the context parameter to handle error

workflow.handle([convertEvent], (context) => {
  const { signal } = context;

  signal.onabort = () => {
    console.error("error in convert event:", abort.reason);
  };
});

Context Parameter

Workflow handlers receive the context as the first parameter, providing access to sendEvent, stream, and signal.

workflow.handle([startEvent], async (context) => {
  const { sendEvent, stream, signal } = context;
  // Use context properties directly
  sendEvent(processEvent.with());
});

Middleware

withState

Adding a state property to the workflow context, which returns a state object, each state is linked to the workflow context.

import { createStatefulMiddleware } from "@llamaindex/workflow-core/middleware/state";

const { withState } = createStatefulMiddleware(() => ({
  pendingTasks: new Set<Promise<unknown>>(),
}));

const workflow = withState(createWorkflow());

workflow.handle([startEvent], (context) => {
  const { state } = context;
  state.pendingTasks.add(
    new Promise((resolve) => {
      setTimeout(() => {
        resolve();
      }, 100);
    }),
  );
});

const { state } = workflow.createContext();

You can also create a state with input:

const { withState } = createStatefulMiddleware((input: { id: string }) => ({
  id: input.id,
}));

const workflow = withState(createWorkflow());
const { state } = workflow.createContext({ id: "1" });

withState also supports snapshot, you can use snapshot to save the state of the workflow, and resume to restore the state of the workflow.

const { snapshot, resume } = workflow.createContext();

// create snapshot
const snapshotData = await snapshot();

// resume workflow from snapshot
const { stream, sendEvent } = workflow.resume(snapshotData);
sendEvent(humanResponseEvent.with("hello"));

withValidation

Make first parameter of handler to be sendEvent and its type safe and runtime safe when you create a workflow using withValidation.

// before:
workflow.handle([startEvent], (start) => {});
// after:
workflow.handle([startEvent], (sendEvent, start) => {});

import { withValidation } from "@llamaindex/workflow-core/middleware/validation";

const startEvent = workflowEvent<void, "start">();
const disallowedEvent = workflowEvent<void, "disallowed">({
  debugLabel: "disallowed",
});
const parseEvent = workflowEvent<string, "parse">();
const stopEvent = workflowEvent<number, "stop">();
const workflow = withValidation(createWorkflow(), [
  [[startEvent], [stopEvent]],
  [[startEvent], [parseEvent]],
]);

workflow.strictHandle([startEvent], (sendEvent, start) => {
  sendEvent(
    disallowedEvent.with(), // <-- ❌ Type Check Failed, Runtime Error
  );
  sendEvent(parseEvent.with("")); // <-- ✅
  sendEvent(stopEvent.with(1)); // <-- ✅
});

withTraceEvents

Adds tracing capabilities to your workflow, allowing you to monitor/decorate handler and debug event flows easily.

When enabled, it collects events based on the directed graph of the runtime and provide lifecycle hooks for each handler.

import {
  withTraceEvents,
  runOnce,
} from "@llamaindex/workflow-core/middleware/trace-events";

const workflow = withTraceEvents(createWorkflow());

workflow.handle(
  [messageEvent],
  runOnce(() => {
    console.log("This message handler will only run once");
  }),
);

workflow.handle([startEvent], (context) => {
  context.sendEvent(messageEvent.with());
  context.sendEvent(messageEvent.with());
});

{
  const { sendEvent } = workflow.createContext();
  sendEvent(startEvent.with());
  sendEvent(messageEvent.with());
  // This message handler will only run once!
}
{
  const { sendEvent } = workflow.createContext();
  // For each new context, the decorator is isolated.
  sendEvent(startEvent.with());
  sendEvent(messageEvent.with());
  // This message handler will only run once!
}

workflow.substream(target, stream)

You can use substream to create a substream from the workflow context, which will only emit events that are emitted by the target event.

const ev = startEvent.with();
const { sendEvent, stream } = workflow.createContext();
sendEvent(ev);
sendEvent(messageEvent.with()); // <- this will not be included in the substream
const substream = workflow.substream(ev, stream);

This is helpful when you have async requests, and you want to track the events that are emitted by the target event.

For example:

• Parallel requests

  without substream

  workflow.handle([startEvent], async (context, { data: uuid }) => {
    const { sendEvent, stream } = context;
    const ev = networkRequestEvent.with(uuid);
    sendEvent(networkRequestEvent);
    // you need bypass uuid to all events to get the correct response
    const responses = await collect(
      filter(workflow.substream(ev, stream), (ev) => ev.data === uuid),
    );
  });
  
  sendEvent(startEvent.with(crypto.randomUUID()));
  sendEvent(startEvent.with(crypto.randomUUID()));
  

  workflow.handle([startEvent], async (context) => {
    const { sendEvent, stream } = context;
    const ev = networkRequestEvent.with();
    sendEvent(networkRequestEvent);
    const responses = await collect(workflow.substream(ev, stream));
  });
  
  sendEvent(startEvent.with());
  sendEvent(startEvent.with());
  

createHandlerDecorator

You can create your own handler decorator to modify the behavior of the handler.

import { createHandlerDecorator } from "@llamaindex/workflow-core/middleware/trace-events";

const noop: (...args: any[]) => void = function noop() {};
export const runOnce = createHandlerDecorator({
  debugLabel: "onceHook",
  getInitialValue: () => false,
  onBeforeHandler: (handler, handlerContext, tracked) =>
    tracked ? noop : handler,
  onAfterHandler: () => true,
});

HandlerContext

The HandlerContext includes the runtime information of the handler in the directed graph of the workflow.

type BaseHandlerContext = {
  // ... some other properties are hidden
  handler: Handler<WorkflowEvent<any>[], any>;
  inputEvents: WorkflowEvent<any>[];
  // events data that are accepted by the handler
  inputs: WorkflowEventData<any>[];
  // events data that are emitted by the handler
  outputs: WorkflowEventData<any>[];

  //#region linked list data structure
  prev: HandlerContext;
  next: Set<HandlerContext>;
  root: HandlerContext;
  //#endregion
};

type SyncHandlerContext = BaseHandlerContext & {
  async: false;
  pending: null;
};

type AsyncHandlerContext = BaseHandlerContext & {
  async: true;
  pending: Promise<WorkflowEventData<any> | void> | null;
};

type HandlerContext = AsyncHandlerContext | SyncHandlerContext;

For example, when you send two startEvent events, and send messageEvent twice (once in the handler and once in the global), the HandlerContext from root to leaf is:

let once = false;
workflow.handle([startEvent], (context) => {
  const { sendEvent } = context;
  if (once) {
    return;
  }
  once = true;
  sendEvent(messageEvent.with());
});
const { sendEvent } = workflow.createContext();
sendEvent(startEvent.with());
sendEvent(startEvent.with());
sendEvent(messageEvent.with());

rootHandlerContext(0)
  ├── startEventContext(0)
  │   └── messageEventContext(0)
  ├── startEventContext(1)
  └── messageEventContext(1)

You can use any directed graph library to visualize the directed graph of the workflow.

Related Packages

• Python Workflows