Question/Feature: Code dependency and separation

[bvkimball]

I have some long running workers like Excel, PDF, image generation. The workers will have a lot of dependencies i don't need my application backend to need but I don't see how those would be "tree-shaken" out or any other alternative. I would really like maybe it the openworkflow with the validatation implementation (zod or other) would define the spec (either through code generation at build time) or something so that i can get a lightweight "client" to "run/queue jobs"

Existing Behavior

import { sendWelcomeEmail } from "./workflows/send-welcome-email";

const handle = await sendWelcomeEmail.run({ userId: "user_123" });

Desired Behavior

import { client } from "./workflows/generated-client";

const handle = await client.run('sendWelcomeEmail', { userId: "user_123" });

[jamescmartinez]

good question! we should add this to our docs

the recommended pattern here is to split the workflow spec from the workflow implementation

1. define the workflow spec - it's just a simple object and can be imported anywhere

// spec.ts
import { defineWorkflowSpec } from "openworkflow";
import { z } from "zod";

export const generatePdfSpec = defineWorkflowSpec({
  name: "generate-pdf",
  schema: z.object({ userId: z.string() }),
});

2. define the workflow - this is what has your PDF dependencies

// openworkflow/generate-pdf.ts
import { defineWorkflow } from "openworkflow";
import { generatePdfSpec } from "../spec.js";
import { HeavyLib } from "heavy-lib";

export const generatePdf = defineWorkflow(
  generatePdfSpec, // this is usually inline in most of our examples
  async ({ input, step }) => {
    await step.run({ name: "generate-pdf" }, async () => {
      await HeavyLib.run(input);
    });
  },
);

3. import the spec elsewhere for typesafety, running workflows, etc.

// api.ts
import { generatePdfSpec } from "../spec.ts";

await ow.runWorkflow(generatePdfSpec, { userId: "123" }); // doesn't import HeavyLib

Does this help?