microsoft / microsoft/durabletask-java

Improved orchestrator and activity input/output handling

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Dominant language
Java
Stars
29
Forks
18
Avg merge
1d 10h
Merged PRs (30d)
2

Description

Background

The current TaskOrchestration and TaskActivity interfaces require implementations to use the context object to receive inputs. Consider the following example (copied from the integration tests):

final String orchestratorName = "SingleActivity";
final String activityName = "Echo";
final String input = Instant.now().toString();
DurableTaskGrpcWorker worker = this.createWorkerBuilder()
    .addOrchestrator(orchestratorName, ctx -> {
        String activityInput = ctx.getInput(String.class);
        String output = ctx.callActivity(activityName, activityInput, String.class).get();
        ctx.complete(output);
    })
    .addActivity(activityName, ctx -> {
        return String.format("Hello, %s!", ctx.getInput(String.class));
    })
    .buildAndStart();

This design, while it works, has a few issues:

  1. The fetching of inputs is not type-safe because the call to ctx.getInput(String.class) could fail if the input isn't actually a string.
  2. The call to ctx.getInput() isn't intuitive, making the programming model harder for developers to learn.
  3. The call to ctx.complete(output) is both unintuitive and inconsistent with how activity functions are defined.

This issue tracks improving the programming model to make processing inputs and outputs more intuitive and type-safe.

Proposal

The proposal is to change these interface definitions so that a developer could write the following, simpler orchestration and activity implementations:

final String orchestratorName = "SingleActivity";
final String activityName = "Echo";
final String input = Instant.now().toString();
DurableTaskGrpcWorker worker = this.createWorkerBuilder()
    .addOrchestrator(orchestratorName, (ctx, activityInput) -> {
        return ctx.callActivity(activityName, activityInput, String.class).get();
    })
    .addActivity(activityName, (ctx, name) -> {
        return String.format("Hello, %s!", name);
    })
    .buildAndStart();

The differences are:

  • The orchestrator and activity functions have the input passed to them explicitly.
  • The orchestrator can use the return value to set the output.

This results in a simpler, more intuitive programming model and is also consistent with the proposed C# programming model.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the TaskOrchestration and TaskActivity interfaces and the integration-test examples referenced in the issue. Trace how inputs and outputs currently flow through the context, then update the programming model so implementations receive typed inputs and return outputs as shown; the integration tests should demonstrate the proposed usage.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
backend-api-design
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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