current version 2.2.0
since 2011/03/01


Ruote is a workflow engine written in Ruby. Ruote is not a state machine library.

It could be described as an ‘operating system for business processes’.

A ruote engine may execute multiple process instances at a time. Processes are instantiated from process definitions written in a Ruby DSL or in XML (or directly as JSON). Process definitions describe the flow of work among participants. Participants stand for users, groups of users, services, legacy systems, etc.

a process definition

            require 'ruote'
            
            pdef = Ruote.define do
              cursor do
                concurrence do
                  reviewer1
                  reviewer2
                end
                editor
                rewind :if => '${not_ok}'
                  # back to the reviewers
                  # if editor not happy
                publish # the document
              end
            end

the engine and some participants

            # engine
            
            require 'ruote/storage/fs_storage'
            
            engine = Ruote::Engine.new(Ruote::Worker.new(Ruote::FsStorage.new('work')))
            
            # participants
            
            engine.register_participant 'reviewer.+' do |workitem|
              puts "reviewing document #{workitem.fields['doc_url']}"
              print "approve ?"
              workitem.fields["#{workitem.participant_name}_reply"] = gets
            end
            
            engine.register_participant 'editor' do |workitem|
              puts "doc : #{workitem.fields['doc_url']}"
              puts "reviewers approval :"
              workitem.fields.entries.each do |k, v|
                puts "#{k} : #{v}" if k.match(/\_reply$/)
              end
              print "should we publish ?"
              workitem.fields['not_ok'] = (gets.strip == 'no')
            end
            
            engine.register_participant 'publish' do |workitem|
              PublicationService.post(workitem.fields['doc_url'])
            end

launching some process instances

            wfid0 = engine.launch(
              pdef, 'doc_url' => 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesbrief.jpg')
            wfid1 = engine.launch(
              pdef, 'doc_url' => 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Constitution_Pg1of4_AC.jpg')

later manipulations

            # querying
            
            [ wfid0, wfid1 ].each do |wfid|
              ps = engine.process(wfid)
              puts "errors for #{wfid} ? #{ps.errors.size > 0}"
            end
            
            # cancelling a process instance
            
            engine.cancel_process(wfid1)

Ruote is available under the MIT open source license.

Ruote used to be named ‘openwfe-ruby’ then ‘openwferu’. The name is now ‘ruote’ (pronounce it ‘ru-o-te’ or ‘route’, as you wish).

For more, head to the documentation or to the quickstart or have a look at a few slides.

community

The mailing list is still the ‘openwferu’ one at http://groups.google.com/group/openwferu-users

The freenode.net channel is #ruote, feel free to stop by for a chat and a coffee. The channel archives are available at http://ruote-irclogs.s3.amazonaws.com/logs.html

See source for a list of the ruote related projects on github.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of organizations using ruote.