How do you monitor workflow executions? And other questions.

[douglasg14b]

I'm trying to get a grasp for this library to pitch it, but I'm having a hard time finding information in the docs.

1. How do you monitor and trace workflow executions?
   • ie. Monitoring failures, making sure retries are occurring, monitoring & tracing complete workflow failure
2. How do you inspect the state of a workflow instance?
   • If a workflow is running, can you programmatically introspect the step it's on, and take action if it's say stuck or failed?
3. Is there a preferred integration for distributed usage? Why would I say use the Hangfire or Crystal integration?

Thanks!!

[glime-ai[bot]]

1. Monitoring and tracing workflow executions in Elsa can be done through logging and the dashboard provided by Elsa. The dashboard allows you to monitor workflow instances, including their current state, whether they are running, suspended, or completed, and any failures that may have occurred. Elsa also supports retries, and you can configure retry policies for activities within your workflows. However, specific documentation on monitoring failures and tracing complete workflow failure may not be readily available, as Elsa's documentation is still a work in progress.

2. To inspect the state of a workflow instance, you can use the Elsa Dashboard, which provides a visual representation of workflow instances and their statuses. Additionally, you can programmatically access the state of a workflow instance using Elsa's APIs. However, as of the last update, the Input/Output feature in the Workflow Instance Viewer was not yet implemented, which may limit some aspects of introspection.

3. For distributed usage, Elsa supports a variety of persistence and hosting options that can be used to scale out workflow execution. The choice between Hangfire, Quartz, or other integrations would depend on your specific requirements, such as the need for persistent background jobs, support for cron expressions, or distributed locks. Hangfire is a popular choice for background job processing in .NET applications and can be used with Elsa for background workflow execution. Quartz is another job scheduling system that can be used for more complex scheduling requirements. Elsa's documentation on distributed hosting can provide more insights into setting up a multi-node environment.

Please note that the information provided here is based on the context provided and the current state of the Elsa documentation. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, it is recommended to consult the official Elsa documentation, GitHub discussions, and community forums.

This comment was generated by Glime.

[douglasg14b]

To future readers: Dashboard-only inspection isn't what I'm aiming for here, it's programmatic inspection. The ability to monitor & report on workflow success & failure rates, the ability to identify nodes that fail the most often, or to identify "stuck" workflows....etc

Without using a visual dashboard.

[fkmbkk2]

douglas14b, yeah Dashboard only inspection is not quite helpful. We need a way for programmatic inspections; so the end user itself could check on the status of each of their cases.