Skip to main content
Version: 0.2.1

⚠️ Caveats & Gotchas

A friendly list of things that trip people up. Each item has a one-line workaround where relevant.

  • One verb per step, no inline composition. A step executes exactly one verb. You cannot chain a CEL transform and an HTTP call in the same step. Workaround: add a second step.

  • action has no out_var — the worker controls output keys. Whatever keys the worker returns are merged directly into Variables. If two action steps return overlapping keys, the later step's values overwrite the earlier ones. Workaround: prefix output keys in your worker, or use a set_var/transform step immediately after to rename them.

  • CEL verbs read Variables, not step.Inputs. transform, filter, map, switch, while, assert, and similar verbs compile their expr against run.Variables. If the value you need is in the run's initial inputs and not yet in Variables, it is not automatically visible. Workaround: add a set_var step at the start of your workflow to promote input values into named variables.

  • Embedded action steps need a worker or service mode. saga.InMemory() dispatches action steps to its in-process publisher, which pauses the saga. Without a registered worker goroutine to reply, the run will pause indefinitely. Workaround: use RegisterVerb for in-process handlers, or run cmd/engine + a gRPC worker for true worker round-trips.

  • 💡 Embedded emit_event matches in-process (no broker). The in-process EventEmitter both wakes runs awaiting the topic (header-subset match) and runs the trigger dispatcher, so matching record_transition triggers start new runs — parity with service mode. (Payload-CEL trigger matching beyond record_transition is not implemented in either mode yet.)

  • 💡 Waits support timeout_s. Both wait_for_signal and wait_for_event accept an optional timeout_s; on timeout the run routes to the step's timeout branch if defined, else to next. (wait_duration/wait_until are scheduled waits — their firing is the intended path, so no timeout branch.)

  • Cancelling a parallel child re-checks the parent join. cancel on a child that is a branch of a parallel join immediately re-evaluates the parent's join and wakes the parent if it is now satisfied (e.g. the cancelled child was the last non-terminal branch, or a quorum is met). Under join_strategy: "all" with other branches still running, the parent correctly stays paused until they finish. For partial completion, use join_strategy: "quorum".

  • ValidateDefinition is not auto-called by the REST publish path. The engine provides engine.ValidateDefinition(def) to catch structural problems (missing steps, circular references, parallel-inside-try_catch, excessive nesting depth) before a workflow goes live. The REST PUT /api/v1/workflows endpoint does not call it automatically. Workaround: call ValidateDefinition in your CI pipeline or publishing tooling before pushing definitions to production.

  • The module path is internal. The Go module is hosted at github.com/Bugs5382/go-saga-orchestration. It is not published to the public Go module proxy. Workaround: add a GONOSUMCHECK / GONOSUMDB / GOFLAGS directive in your environment, or vendor the module, per your organisation's private module setup.