nFlow is a light-weight and modular solution for orchestrating processes using Java. Non-exhaustive list of nFlow usage scenarios:

• Orchestration of microservices: trending REST-based microservice architecture does not provide standardized solutions for composing services into reliable business processes. nFlow fills this gap by providing a framework for implementing workflows based on ideas like idempotent retry and finite state machine.

• Traditional business process engine: although nFlow does not implement (bloated) BPMN/BPEL standards, it can be utilized as a superfast business process engine that runs on application server of your choice and starts in seconds instead of minutes. nFlow workflow definitions and instances can be visualized and managed in nFlow Explorer user interface.

• Asynchronous backend dispatcher: submit tasks from UI to nFlow that executes or forwards them realiably following Request/Acknowledge pattern. nFlow engine can be embedded to your UI applications or run as an external service.

Create a Maven project. Add the following to your pom.xml. nFlow is available in Maven central repository.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.nitorcreations</groupId>
  <artifactId>nflow-jetty</artifactId>
  <version>3.3.0</version>
</dependency>

Create a class for starting nFlow in embedded Jetty using H2 memory database.

import com.nitorcreations.nflow.jetty.StartNflow;

public class App {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    new StartNflow().startJetty(7500, "local", "");
  }
}

That's it! Running App in your favourite IDE will start nFlow server though without any workflow definitions. Point your browser to http://localhost:7500/doc/ and you can use interactive online documentation for the nFlow REST API.

See the next sections for creating your own workflow definitions.

Note! Starting from 4.0.0 release, nFlow requires Java 8 or newer. Older releases require Java 7 or newer.

For a more thorough getting started guide, configurations, license information etc. checkout the nFlow wiki pages! You can also look into a short slide deck.