Workflows from unbound functions

Throughout this tutorial we have been showing workflows defined as classes. However, this is not the only way to define a workflow: you can also define the steps in your workflow through independent or "unbound" functions and assign them to a workflow using the @step() decorator. Let's see how that works.

First we create an empty class to hold the steps:

class TestWorkflow(Workflow):
    pass

Now we can add steps to the workflow by defining functions and decorating them with the @step() decorator:

@step(workflow=TestWorkflow)
def some_step(ev: StartEvent) -> StopEvent:
    return StopEvent()

In this example, we're adding a starting step to the TestWorkflow class. The @step() decorator takes the workflow argument, which is the class to which the step will be added. The function signature is the same as for a regular step, with the exception of the workflow argument.

You can also add steps this way to any existing workflow class! This can be handy if you just need one extra step in your workflow and don't want to subclass an entire workflow to do it.

That's it!

Congratulations, you've completed the workflows tutorial!