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Child Threads

As discussed in the WfRun documentation, a WfRun can have multiple ThreadRuns. The main thread is called the Entrypoint Thread, and all other threads are children (or grandchildren) of the entrypoint.

Entrypoint Thread​

A WfSpec defines one or more ThreadSpecs, and the corresponding WfRun has one or more ThreadRuns. Each ThreadRun has a corresponding ThreadSpec in the WfSpec.

In every WfSpec, one ThreadSpec is special: it is the ENTRYPOINT thread. Similarly, each WfRun has a special ENTRYPOINT thread run.

When you run a WfSpec (thereby creating a WfRun), the resulting WfRun is created with one entrypoint ThreadRun, which (as you guessed) is specified by the entrypoint ThreadSpec of the WfSpec.

Thread Types​

A WfRun may have multiple ThreadRuns in it. ThreadRuns have four types:

  • ENTRYPOINT threads, described above.
  • CHILD thread, created explicitly via a SPAWN_THREAD node (in Java, for example, WorkflowThread::spawnThread()).
  • INTERRUPT thread, triggered by an External Event.
  • FAILURE_HANDLER threads, which are akin to exception handlers in programming.

All ThreadRuns other than the entrypoint thread will have a parentThreadId, referring to the thread that spawned it. In the case of an INTERRUPT thread, the parent thread is the thread that was interrupted; in the case of a FAILURE_HANDLER thread, the parent is the thread whose failure triggered the exception handler.

Variable Scoping​

A ThreadSpec can define Variables (for example, through the variableDefs field in the JSON spec, or WorkflowThread::adVariable() in Java). When a ThreadRun is created, all defined Variables are instantiated (either with input values or as NULL).

When a child ThreadRun of any type is started, it has read and write access to its own Variables, and all Variables that its parent has access to (including the parent's parent, and so on).

Since a ThreadRun can have multiple children, the parent does not have access to the variables of the children.