- What is briefley/filament-workflow-builder used for?
- It is a Filament plugin for visually designing approval and automation workflows with a drag-and-drop canvas. You define states, transitions, conditions, and actions, then attach workflows to Eloquent models and manage runs from the Filament admin UI. It is aimed at scheduled workflow orchestration with pluggable step executors.
- How do I install briefley/filament-workflow-builder in a Laravel app?
- Install it with Composer, publish the package config and migrations, register the plugin in your Filament PanelProvider, and run migrations. You also need a configured queue driver and a running Laravel scheduler for queued step execution. Check the README for the exact plugin class and publish tags before wiring it into an existing panel.
- Which Laravel, PHP, and Filament versions does this package support?
- The technical evaluation expects PHP 8.1+, Laravel 10 or 11, Filament 3.x, and a queue driver such as Redis or database. The exact version constraints should be verified in the package composer.json before adoption. No documented Filament major-version upgrade path was provided, so treat Filament upgrades as a compatibility risk.
- How do step executors work and can they be resolved from Laravel's container?
- The pluggable step executor contract is the main integration seam, letting you keep domain logic in your own action or service classes while the package orchestrates runs. The evaluation flags container resolution as a key question, so verify whether executors are resolved through Laravel's service container and can receive injected services or tenant context. The exact executor interface signature, return contract, and exception handling are not documented in the provided overview.
- Does it support scheduled workflows and queued step execution?
- Yes, the package is described as scheduled workflow orchestration with queued jobs for step execution. That means you need a running queue worker and Laravel scheduler in production. Verify how the package handles missed runs, scheduler downtime, and long-running workflows before relying on it for critical automation.
- Can I attach workflows to Eloquent models and manage runs in Filament?
- Yes, the package is designed to attach workflows to Eloquent models and lets you manage runs from the Filament admin UI. Expect new database tables for workflow definitions, instances, step runs, and schedules after publishing migrations. This admin-panel focus fits ops and internal tooling better than customer-facing workflow editing without additional UI work.
- What are the retry, timeout, and idempotency guarantees for workflow steps?
- The provided overview does not document retry, backoff, timeout, at-least-once versus exactly-once execution, or any idempotency key exposed to executors. These are the hard parts of workflow engines and should be verified before modeling critical processes. If guarantees are weak, design executors to be idempotent and add compensating actions for partial failure.
- Does it support multi-tenancy for workflows, instances, and schedules?
- Multi-tenancy is not documented in the provided context. Because the package is expected to persist workflow definitions, instances, step runs, and schedules, verify whether tenant scoping is built in or must be added to queries and executors. If not supported, plan for additional scoping work or a fork.
- How do I test workflows and is there a fake executor or assertion helper?
- No documented test harness, fake executor, or assertion helper is mentioned in the provided overview. You can still test executor classes in isolation and use Laravel queue fakes around the orchestration layer. Verify the actual test suite size and any published testing helpers in the repository before depending on the package in CI.
- Is this package production-ready and who maintains it?
- Treat it as a single-maintainer dependency: the evaluation reports low stars, an unknown repository, no commercial backing, and an MIT license. Adoption and bus-factor risk are high until commit cadence, tag history, release dates, and public production references are verified. Fork-and-own is viable because of the license, but budget for maintenance and execution-semantics review.