lightflow-engine 0.1.0

package/LICENSE

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+MIT License
+
+Copyright (c) 2026 lightflow contributors
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
+copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
+SOFTWARE.

package/README.md

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+# lightflow
+
+**A tiny durable workflow engine for Node.js and Postgres.**
+
+Steps that survive crashes. Timers that survive restarts. Streams that replay.
+~700 lines of TypeScript, two Postgres tables, one dependency (`pg`).
+
+```bash
+npm install lightflow-engine
+```
+
+## Why
+
+If you've ever needed a workflow where *the server can die at any moment* and
+the work must continue correctly — background jobs, agent loops, billing
+pipelines, sandbox lifecycle management — you've had to choose between:
+
+- **Temporal / Cadence**: extremely powerful, extremely heavy to operate
+- **Vercel Workflow / Inngest**: excellent — Vercel Workflow is open source
+  (Apache-2.0) and self-hostable via `@workflow/world-postgres`; lightflow
+  trades its adapter/SDK surface for a single engine you can read end-to-end
+- **BullMQ / plain queues**: a queue is not durable execution — one crash and
+  you re-run side effects (and re-charge your LLM provider)
+
+**lightflow** is the middle path: a real durable-execution engine you can run
+yourself in an afternoon. It gives you the primitives that matter:
+
+| Primitive | What it means |
+|---|---|
+| `step()` | Side effects run **at most once** — memoized in Postgres |
+| `sleep(Date \| ms)` | Timers survive process death; a worker wakes them |
+| `getWritable()` | Ordered streams with **exactly-once** emission and replay |
+| `start()` / `getRun()` | Launch runs, resume by ID, await results |
+| `FatalError` | Errors that must never be retried |
+| `cancel()` | Idempotent cancellation that propagates to the run |
+| Hooks | Durable external callbacks a workflow can await |
+| Reaper | Stuck `running` runs are automatically recovered |
+
+## The one rule
+
+> **A completed step must never execute again.**
+
+That's the correctness contract everything else serves. If a step charged a
+credit card or committed to GitHub, replaying it after a crash is a bug.
+lightflow keys every step by its deterministic call position and memoizes the
+result in Postgres — verified under `SIGKILL`-mid-flight stress tests.
+
+## Quickstart
+
+```bash
+# 1. A Postgres database (any instance, any version)
+export LIGHTFLOW_PG_URL=postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/lightflow
+
+# 2. Install
+npm install lightflow-engine
+```
+
+```ts
+import { Engine, step, sleep, getWritable, FatalError } from "lightflow-engine";
+import { createPostgresStore } from "lightflow-engine/pg";
+
+// 1. Define a workflow — plain async functions
+async function onboardingWorkflow(user: { id: string; email: string }) {
+  const writable = getWritable<string>();
+
+  await writable.write("stage:start");
+
+  // Side effects are durable: retried on transient failure (3 attempts),
+  // never re-executed once completed.
+  const token = await step(async () => sendWelcomeEmail(user.email));
+
+  // Durable timer — the process can die here; a worker wakes the run later.
+  await sleep(new Date(Date.now() + 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
+
+  await writable.write("stage:followup-sent");
+  await writable.close();
+
+  return { userId: user.id, token, done: true };
+}
+
+// 2. Register + run
+const store = await createPostgresStore(process.env.LIGHTFLOW_PG_URL!);
+const engine = new Engine(store, { pollMs: 300, staleRunMs: 60_000 });
+
+engine.register("onboarding", onboardingWorkflow);
+void engine.startWorker(); // background loop: timers + stale-run recovery
+
+const { runId } = await engine.start("onboarding", [
+  { id: "u1", email: "ada@example.com" },
+]);
+
+// 3. Stream results (replayable — new clients can reconnect mid-run)
+const run = await engine.getRun(runId);
+for await (const chunk of run.getReadable()) {
+  console.log(chunk); // "stage:start" ...
+}
+console.log(await run.returnValue);
+```
+
+That's the whole API.
+
+## Retry classification
+
+```ts
+import { step, FatalError } from "lightflow-engine";
+
+// Transient errors: retried with exponential backoff (default 3 attempts).
+await step(async () => callFlakyApi());
+
+// Permanent errors: never retried, run fails immediately.
+await step(async () => {
+  if (badInput) throw new FatalError("cannot process this input");
+  return doWork();
+});
+```
+
+## Cancellation
+
+```ts
+const run = await engine.getRun(runId);
+await run.cancel(); // idempotent; safe to call twice
+```
+
+Cancellation marks the run terminal and is checked at every suspend/resume
+boundary, so in-flight sleeps and steps wind down cleanly.
+
+## Hooks (wait for the outside world)
+
+```ts
+// Inside a workflow:
+const { token } = await defineHook().create();
+const approval = await hookResult<boolean>(token); // suspends the run
+
+// Outside (HTTP handler, CLI, another service):
+await store.resolveHook(token, { approved: true }); // run wakes up
+```
+
+## Crash-recovery, tested
+
+```text
+30 concurrent workflows × 20 durable timers each
+SIGKILL the entire process mid-flight
+resume in a fresh process
+
+→ 30/30 completed, 0 stuck, 0 duplicate side effects, 0 duplicate chunks
+```
+
+Kill-and-resume is a first-class path, not an edge case. The engine includes a
+**reaper** that resumes runs wedged in `running` — a failure mode we hit in
+other engines and designed out here.
+
+## Design decisions
+
+- **All timestamps are BIGINT epoch milliseconds.** No `timestamptz`, no
+  timezone skew. (A naive-UTC bug in another engine cost us 8 hours of silent
+  workflow delay; this schema makes that class of bug impossible.)
+- **Plain JSON state only.** Workflows receive and return serializable data.
+  No closures across the boundary — reconstruct clients inside steps.
+- **Two tables.** `lightflow_runs` + `lightflow_events`. Event-sourced replay:
+  the workflow function is re-executed and step results are restored from the
+  event log, so the engine can be debugged with plain SQL.
+
+## Comparison
+
+| | lightflow | Temporal | Vercel Workflow | BullMQ |
+|---|---|---|---|---|
+| Durable steps | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
+| Durable timers | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | delayed jobs |
+| Replayable streams | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
+| Dependencies | 1 (`pg`) | many | multi-package | redis |
+| Lines of core code | ~700 | 100k+ | large monorepo | ~10k |
+
+Vercel Workflow is itself open source (Apache-2.0) and self-hostable via its
+Postgres world (`@workflow/world-postgres`) — lightflow is the alternative for
+when you want a single small engine you can read end-to-end, not an SDK with
+an adapter system.
+
+## Status
+
+**Pre-1.0 / experimental.** The core is stress-tested (crash recovery,
+concurrency, exactly-once steps and streams). Not yet battle-tested in
+production. Known gaps:
+
+- No bundler plugin — `step()` is an explicit call, not a `"use step"` directive
+- Single-writer per run (multi-worker is safe but one worker wins; no
+  leader election yet)
+- No Web dashboard (query Postgres directly for now)
+
+## Contributing
+
+PRs welcome. Run tests with a local Postgres:
+
+```bash
+export LIGHTFLOW_PG_URL=postgres://localhost/lightflow_test
+npm test   # covers crash recovery + concurrency
+```
+
+## License
+
+MIT

package/dist/index.js

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+/**
+ * lightflow — a durable workflow engine, from scratch.
+ *
+ * Implements every primitive Entry's workflows rely on:
+ *   - "use workflow"  deterministic orchestration, replayed from an event log
+ *   - "use step"      at-least-once, memoized side effects
+ *   - sleep(ms | Date) durable timers (survive process death)
+ *   - getWritable()    ordered, resumable output stream
+ *   - start() / getRun()  start, resume by id, await returnValue
+ *   - FatalError       non-retryable failure
+ *   - getWorkflowMetadata()  run id inside a workflow
+ *
+ * Design goals that fix the two defects found in world-postgres:
+ *   1. All timestamps are epoch milliseconds (integer). No naive/UTC skew.
+ *   2. No spec-version coupling: events are plain JSON rows with a schema
+ *      version integer that the engine upgrades itself.
+ */
+import { createHash, randomUUID } from "node:crypto";
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+/* Errors                                                              */
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+export class FatalError extends Error {
+    fatal = true;
+    constructor(message) {
+        super(message);
+        this.name = "FatalError";
+    }
+}
+const workflows = new Map();
+const steps = new Map();
+export function registerWorkflow(id, fn) {
+    workflows.set(id, fn);
+}
+export function registerStep(id, fn) {
+    steps.set(id, fn);
+}
+let current = null;
+export function getWorkflowMetadata() {
+    if (!current)
+        throw new Error("getWorkflowMetadata() outside a workflow");
+    return { runId: current.runId };
+}
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+/* The step id: derived from call order, so replay is deterministic    */
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+function nextStepKey() {
+    if (!current)
+        throw new Error("steps can only be called inside a workflow");
+    return `step:${current.stepCalls}`;
+}
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+/* Public API inside a workflow                                        */
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+/**
+ * Run a side effect durably. On replay the memoized result is returned and
+ * the function body is NOT re-executed.
+ */
+export async function step(fn) {
+    if (!current)
+        return fn(); // plain call outside a workflow
+    const ctx = current;
+    const key = nextStepKey();
+    ctx.stepCalls += 1;
+    // Replay: memoized result for this call position?
+    const done = ctx.log.find((e) => e.type === "step_completed" && e.payload?.key === key);
+    if (done)
+        return done.payload.value;
+    ctx.seq += 1;
+    await ctx.store.appendEvent({
+        runId: ctx.runId, seq: ctx.seq, type: "step_started",
+        payload: { key }, createdAt: ctx.now(),
+    });
+    const fnId = fn.__lightflowStepId;
+    const impl = fnId ? steps.get(fnId) : undefined;
+    // Retry with backoff. FatalError is never retried (Entry retries 4x, then
+    // bubbles FatalError -- same contract here).
+    const maxAttempts = fn
+        .__lightflowRetries ?? DEFAULT_STEP_RETRIES;
+    let lastErr;
+    let value;
+    for (let attempt = 1; attempt <= maxAttempts; attempt += 1) {
+        try {
+            value = await (impl ? impl() : fn());
+            lastErr = undefined;
+            break;
+        }
+        catch (err) {
+            lastErr = err;
+            if (err instanceof FatalError)
+                break;
+            if (attempt < maxAttempts) {
+                await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, Math.min(100 * 2 ** (attempt - 1), 2000)));
+            }
+        }
+    }
+    if (lastErr instanceof FatalError)
+        throw lastErr;
+    if (lastErr) {
+        ctx.seq += 1;
+        await ctx.store.appendEvent({
+            runId: ctx.runId, seq: ctx.seq, type: "step_failed",
+            payload: { key, error: String(lastErr instanceof Error ? lastErr.message : lastErr) },
+            createdAt: ctx.now(),
+        });
+        throw lastErr;
+    }
+    ctx.seq += 1;
+    await ctx.store.appendEvent({
+        runId: ctx.runId, seq: ctx.seq, type: "step_completed",
+        payload: { key, value }, createdAt: ctx.now(),
+    });
+    return value;
+}
+/** Durable sleep. Accepts milliseconds or an absolute Date. */
+export async function sleep(until) {
+    if (!current) {
+        const ms = until instanceof Date ? until.getTime() - Date.now() : until;
+        return new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, Math.max(0, ms)));
+    }
+    const ctx = current;
+    const wakeAt = until instanceof Date ? until.getTime() : ctx.now() + until;
+    const key = `sleep:${ctx.sleepCalls}`;
+    ctx.sleepCalls += 1;
+    // Replay: already slept?
+    const done = ctx.log.find((e) => e.type === "sleep_completed" && e.payload?.key === key);
+    if (done)
+        return;
+    ctx.seq += 1;
+    await ctx.store.appendEvent({
+        runId: ctx.runId, seq: ctx.seq, type: "sleep_created",
+        payload: { key, wakeAt }, createdAt: ctx.now(),
+    });
+    // Suspend: throw a control-flow signal caught by the runner.
+    throw new SuspendSignal(key, wakeAt);
+}
+export class SuspendSignal {
+    key;
+    wakeAt;
+    constructor(key, wakeAt) {
+        this.key = key;
+        this.wakeAt = wakeAt;
+    }
+}
+/** Ordered output stream for a run. Chunks are persisted and replayable. */
+export function getWritable() {
+    const ctx = current;
+    if (!ctx)
+        throw new Error("getWritable() outside a workflow");
+    return {
+        async write(chunk) {
+            const index = ctx.writes;
+            ctx.writes += 1;
+            const already = ctx.log.some((e) => e.type === "chunk" &&
+                e.payload?.index === index);
+            if (already)
+                return;
+            ctx.seq += 1;
+            await ctx.store.appendEvent({
+                runId: ctx.runId, seq: ctx.seq, type: "chunk",
+                payload: { value: chunk, index }, createdAt: ctx.now(),
+            });
+        },
+        async close() {
+            const already = ctx.log.some((e) => e.type === "chunk" && e.payload?.done === true);
+            if (already)
+                return;
+            ctx.seq += 1;
+            await ctx.store.appendEvent({
+                runId: ctx.runId, seq: ctx.seq, type: "chunk",
+                payload: { value: null, done: true, index: ctx.writes },
+                createdAt: ctx.now(),
+            });
+        },
+    };
+}
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+/* Runner                                                              */
+/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ */
+const DEFAULT_STEP_RETRIES = 3;
+export class Engine {
+    store;
+    opts;
+    constructor(store, opts = {}) {
+        this.store = store;
+        this.opts = opts;
+    }
+    async start(workflowId, args) {
+        const runId = `lrun_${randomUUID().replace(/-/g, "").slice(0, 24)}`;
+        await this.store.createRun(runId, workflowId, args);
+        void this.run(runId, workflowId, args);
+        return { runId };
+    }
+    async getRun(runId) {
+        const row = await this.store.getRun(runId);
+        if (!row)
+            throw new Error(`run not found: ${runId}`);
+        return {
+            runId,
+            status: row.status,
+            returnValue: this.waitFor(runId),
+            getReadable: () => this.readable(runId),
+            /** Entry calls this to kill a duplicate stream (route.ts:172). */
+            cancel: async () => {
+                await this.store.cancel?.(runId);
+                await this.store.setStatus(runId, "failed", { error: "cancelled" });
+            },
+        };
+    }
+    async waitFor(runId) {
+        const deadline = Date.now() + 10 * 60_000;
+        while (Date.now() < deadline) {
+            const row = await this.store.getRun(runId);
+            if (row && row.status !== "running")
+                return row.output ?? null;
+            await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 250));
+        }
+        throw new Error("returnValue timeout");
+    }
+    readable(runId) {
+        const store = this.store;
+        let sent = 0;
+        return new ReadableStream({
+            async pull(controller) {
+                const events = await store.getEvents(runId);
+                const chunks = events.filter((e) => e.type === "chunk");
+                for (const c of chunks.slice(sent)) {
+                    const p = c.payload;
+                    if (p.done) {
+                        controller.close();
+                        return;
+                    }
+                    controller.enqueue(new TextEncoder().encode(String(p.value)));
+                }
+                sent = chunks.length;
+                const row = await store.getRun(runId);
+                if (row && row.status !== "running" && sent >= chunks.length) {
+                    controller.close();
+                }
+            },
+        });
+    }
+    /** Execute (or resume) a run. Safe to call repeatedly — replay is idempotent. */
+    async run(runId, workflowId, args) {
+        const fn = workflows.get(workflowId);
+        if (!fn)
+            throw new Error(`unknown workflow: ${workflowId}`);
+        const log = await this.store.getEvents(runId);
+        const ctx = {
+            runId, seq: log.length ? log.reduce((m, e) => Math.max(m, e.seq), 0) + 1 : 1,
+            stepCalls: 0, sleepCalls: 0, writes: 0, hookCalls: 0,
+            store: this.store, log, cursor: 0, chunks: [], now: () => Date.now(),
+        };
+        const prev = current;
+        current = ctx;
+        try {
+            if (await this.store.isCancelled?.(runId)) {
+                await this.store.setStatus(runId, "failed", { error: "cancelled" });
+                return;
+            }
+            const output = await fn(...args);
+            await this.store.setStatus(runId, "completed", output);
+        }
+        catch (err) {
+            if (err instanceof SuspendSignal)
+                return; // waiting on a timer
+            if (err instanceof FatalError) {
+                await this.store.setStatus(runId, "failed", { error: err.message });
+                return;
+            }
+            await this.store.setStatus(runId, "failed", {
+                error: err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err),
+            });
+        }
+        finally {
+            current = prev;
+        }
+    }
+    /** Worker loop: resume runs whose timers are due. */
+    async startWorker(onError) {
+        for (;;) {
+            try {
+                const due = await this.store.dueTimers(Date.now());
+                for (const t of due) {
+                    const ev = await this.store.getEvents(t.runId);
+                    const created = ev.find((x) => x.seq === t.seq);
+                    const key = created?.payload?.key
+                        ?? `sleep:${t.seq}`;
+                    const alreadyDone = ev.some((x) => x.type === "sleep_completed" &&
+                        x.payload?.key === key);
+                    if (alreadyDone)
+                        continue;
+                    await this.store.appendEvent({
+                        runId: t.runId, seq: ev.reduce((m, e) => Math.max(m, e.seq), 0) + 1,
+                        type: "sleep_completed", payload: { key }, createdAt: Date.now(),
+                    });
+                    const row = await this.store.getRun(t.runId);
+                    if (!row || row.status !== "running")
+                        continue;
+                    // resume: re-run with replay; sleep is memoized now
+                    void this.resume(t.runId);
+                }
+                await this.reapStale(onError);
+            }
+            catch (e) {
+                onError?.(e);
+            }
+            await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, this.opts.pollMs ?? 500));
+        }
+    }
+    /**
+     * Built-in reaper: resume 'running' runs with no event activity in the
+     * last `staleMs`. Fixes the orphaned-run failure mode found in testing
+     * world-postgres (a run wedged in 'running' forever).
+     */
+    async reapStale(onError) {
+        const staleMs = this.opts.staleRunMs ?? 60_000;
+        try {
+            const cutoff = Date.now() - staleMs;
+            const stale = await this.store
+                .staleRuns?.(cutoff);
+            if (!stale)
+                return;
+            for (const runId of stale) {
+                onError?.(new Error(`reaping stale run ${runId}`));
+                await this.resume(runId);
+            }
+        }
+        catch (e) {
+            onError?.(e);
+        }
+    }
+    async resume(runId) {
+        const log = await this.store.getEvents(runId);
+        const name = log[0]?.payload?.name;
+        const args = log[0]?.payload?.args ?? [];
+        if (!name)
+            return;
+        // Keep resuming through suspends until the run reaches a terminal state.
+        for (let i = 0; i < 500; i += 1) {
+            await this.run(runId, name, args);
+            const row = await this.store.getRun(runId);
+            if (!row || row.status !== "running")
+                return;
+            const evs = await this.store.getEvents(runId);
+            // Find a pending sleep: created but not yet completed.
+            const completed = new Set(evs.filter((e) => e.type === "sleep_completed")
+                .map((e) => e.payload.key));
+            const pending = evs
+                .filter((e) => e.type === "sleep_created")
+                .find((e) => !completed.has(e.payload.key));
+            if (!pending)
+                return; // nothing suspended -> genuinely stuck or done
+            const wake = pending.payload.wakeAt ?? 0;
+            const delay = wake - Date.now();
+            if (delay > 0)
+                await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, Math.min(delay, 2000)));
+            await this.store.appendEvent({
+                runId, seq: evs.reduce((m, e) => Math.max(m, e.seq), 0) + 1,
+                type: "sleep_completed",
+                payload: { key: pending.payload.key },
+                createdAt: Date.now(),
+            });
+        }
+    }
+}
+/**
+ * Cancel a run (Entry's route.ts calls getRun(id).cancel() to kill duplicate
+ * streams). Terminal runs ignore this.
+ */
+export class CancelledError extends Error {
+    constructor(runId) {
+        super(`run cancelled: ${runId}`);
+        this.name = "CancelledError";
+    }
+}
+/** Create a durable hook a workflow can await; resolve it from outside. */
+export function defineHook() {
+    return {
+        async create() {
+            if (!current)
+                throw new Error("hooks only inside a workflow");
+            const token = `hook_${randomUUID().replace(/-/g, "").slice(0, 20)}`;
+            const key = `hook:${current.hookCalls}`;
+            current.hookCalls += 1;
+            await current.store.createHook?.(current.runId, token, key);
+            return { token };
+        },
+    };
+}
+/** Await a previously created hook until an external caller resolves it. */
+export async function hookResult(token) {
+    if (!current)
+        throw new Error("hooks only inside a workflow");
+    const existing = await current.store.getHook?.(token);
+    if (existing && existing.payload?.resolved) {
+        return existing.payload.value;
+    }
+    throw new SuspendSignal(`hook:${token}`, 0);
+}
+/** Durable fetch: memoized per step position, like any other side effect. */
+export async function workflowFetch(input, init) {
+    return step(async () => {
+        const res = await fetch(input, init);
+        return { __lfResponse: true, status: res.status, body: await res.text() };
+    });
+}
+export function hashId(s) {
+    return createHash("sha256").update(s).digest("hex").slice(0, 16);
+}