Glossary

The terms Boomerang Flow and these docs use, in alphabetical order. Each links to the page that explains it.

action: A point in a workflow where a person decides before the run carries on: an approval or a manual task. See Actions.

approval: An action where people approve or reject, added with the Manual Approval task. Once approved, the task ends Succeeded; once rejected, Failed. See How an approval is decided.

artifact: A file a task uploads with Upload Artifact so that it outlasts the run. A run-scoped artifact belongs to its run and expires after its retention, 30 days by default. A workflow-scoped artifact is kept for later runs of the workflow until a new upload replaces it or someone deletes it. See Artifacts and the run workspace.

catalogue: The tasks Flow seeds, available in every workspace from the editor's Add a task panel. Admins manage them in Admin › Tasks. See The catalogue.

claim: A dispatcher taking a ready task run from Flow to run it. Each claim carries a lease. See Dispatchers.

dispatcher: The process that claims task runs and runs them. Flow ships a Kubernetes dispatcher that runs each task as a pod, and any process that follows Flow's dispatcher contract can be one. See Dispatchers.

executor: How Flow's Kubernetes dispatcher runs a task: tekton, as a Tekton TaskRun (the dispatcher's default), or kube-jobs, as a Kubernetes Job. See Choose an executor.

finally task: A task linked from End, which runs once the run's graph has ended, however it ended. Use one to clean up or report the outcome. See Run a task after the run ends.

for each: A task setting, Run for each item, that runs the task once per item of a list, each item as its own task run, up to 256 items. See Repeat a task for each item.

global parameter: A parameter an admin sets in Admin › Parameters for every workspace, read as $(global.params.<name>). See Parameters.

integration: A connection between a workspace and another service, such as GitHub or Slack. It can share that service's credentials with tasks as workspace parameters. See Integrations.

lease: How long a claim stays valid: 90 seconds, renewed by the dispatcher's heartbeat every 30 seconds. When a lease lapses, Flow queues the task again. See How leases and heartbeats work.

node: A task placed on a workflow's canvas, with a task name unique in the workflow. Later tasks read its results by that name. See Workflow editor.

parameter: A named value a workflow or task reads, written as a reference such as $(params.registry). Values come from layers: global, workspace, workflow, task, and the run's context. When two layers hold a value, the later one in that list wins. See Parameters.

phase: Where a run or task run is in its lifecycle: pending, queued, running or completed. The webapp shows the status, not the phase. See Status and phase.

quota: A limit on what one workspace can use, such as runs per month, concurrent runs or artifact storage. See Quotas.

revision: One saved form of a task. A node stays on its task's revision until you upgrade it in the editor. A workflow's saved forms are called versions. See Tasks.

run: Short for workflow run. See Runs.

run workspace: The volume a run's tasks share, mounted at /workspace unless the workflow sets another path. Each run gets a new one, removed when the run completes. Don't confuse it with a workspace, the tenant. See The run workspace.

schedule: A timetable that starts runs of a workflow, once or repeating, with the parameter values each run starts with. See Schedules.

secured parameter: A parameter stored encrypted, masked in the webapp and scrubbed from logs. A secured parameter can't be made unsecured. See Secured parameters.

starter: See template.

status: The outcome of a run or task run, such as running, succeeded or timedout. The webapp shows it as a label, such as Succeeded or Timed Out. See Status and phase.

task: One unit of work in a workflow: a container a dispatcher runs, or a step Flow runs itself, such as an approval. See Tasks.

task run: The record of one execution of one task in a run, with its status, results and log. See Runs.

task type: The kind of task, which decides who runs it. Container types, such as template and script, go to a dispatcher; the rest, such as approval and sleep, run inside Flow. See Task types.

template: A workflow shared with every workspace. Running it makes it your workspace's own workflow, whose tasks follow the template's versions. A starter is different: Start a workflow on Home copies it into a workspace as an ordinary workflow. See Templates.

token: A credential for Flow's API, of one of four kinds: session, for a signed-in person; user, a person's long-lived token; key, for a service or a workflow on one workspace; and global, for an admin, an automation or a dispatcher. See Machine tokens.

trigger: How a run starts: manual, schedule, webhook, event or GitHub. Each workflow turns each one on or off. See Triggers.

workflow: A graph of tasks that automates a process the same way every time. See Workflows.

workflow run: The record of one execution of a workflow: the version it ran, what started it, and a task run for every task. See Runs.

workspace: The tenant that holds workflows, members, parameters and quotas. In these docs a bare "workspace" always means this, never the run workspace. See Manage workspace.

Next steps

• Flow in five minutes: how the pieces fit together.
• Getting started: build and run your first workflow.