Building a jBPM6 application with SpringBoot

Please note there is an updated tutorial covering jBPM 7 with Spring Boot 2 available here: Developing a jBPM 7 Web application example

In this article we will show how you can use jBPM 6 runtime engine with a Spring Boot microservices application

In order to integrate jBPM 6 with Spring you can use two different approaches:

  • Use a Self Managed Process Engine which requires just a single RuntimeManager instance. This can be carried out with the RuntimeManager API
  • Use a Shared Task Service: this allows using multiple Runtime Managers and can be carried out using the jBPM Services API

We will use the second approach which requires a bit more of configuration however it allows jBPM assets to be added and removed dynamically without restarting the application. One example you can use to get started quickly is available at: https://github.com/mswiderski/jbpm-examples/tree/master/spring-boot-jbpm

Let’s see the most significant configuration assets before compiling and running the application.

The first item you will need is an implementation for the IdentityProvider interface:

package org.jbpm.spring;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;

import org.kie.internal.identity.IdentityProvider;
import org.springframework.security.core.Authentication;
import org.springframework.security.core.GrantedAuthority;
import org.springframework.security.core.context.SecurityContextHolder;

public class SpringSecurityIdentityProvider implements IdentityProvider {

	public String getName() {
		
		Authentication auth = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication();
		if (auth != null && auth.isAuthenticated()) {
			return auth.getName();
		}
		return "system";
	}

	public List<String> getRoles() {
		Authentication auth = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication();
		if (auth != null && auth.isAuthenticated()) {
			List<String> roles = new ArrayList<String>();
			
			for (GrantedAuthority ga : auth.getAuthorities()) {
				roles.add(ga.getAuthority());
			}
			
			return roles;
		}
		
		return Collections.emptyList();
	}

	public boolean hasRole(String role) {
		return false;
	}

}

As you can see, the SpringSecurityIdentityProvider implements a generic IdentityProvider. The actual Security Context is defined in the config/security-context.xml file:

  <authentication-manager>
    <authentication-provider>
      <user-service properties="classpath:/roles.properties"/>
    </authentication-provider>
  </authentication-manager>

Let’s dig a bit more into the configuration. Next thing is to configure the Transaction Manager as Spring Bean:

  <bean id="transactionManager"
    class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager" depends-on="bitronixTransactionManager,datasource" />

Next it’s the turn of JPA and Persistence:

  <bean id="entityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean" depends-on="transactionManager">
      <property name="persistenceXmlLocation" value="classpath:/META-INF/jbpm-persistence.xml" />
  </bean>

Finally, it’s the turn of Runtime Manager Factory and Jbpm Services:

  <bean id="runtimeManagerFactory" class="org.kie.spring.manager.SpringRuntimeManagerFactoryImpl">
    <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
    <property name="userGroupCallback" ref="userGroupCallback"/>
  </bean>

  <bean id="definitionService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.bpmn2.BPMN2DataServiceImpl"/>
  
  <bean id="taskService" class="org.kie.spring.factorybeans.TaskServiceFactoryBean" destroy-method="close">
    <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="entityManagerFactory"/>
    <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
    <property name="userGroupCallback" ref="userGroupCallback"/>
    <property name="listeners">
      <list>
        <bean class="org.jbpm.services.task.audit.JPATaskLifeCycleEventListener">
          <constructor-arg value="true"/>
        </bean>
      </list>
    </property>
  </bean>
  
  <bean id="transactionCmdService" class="org.jbpm.shared.services.impl.TransactionalCommandService">
    <constructor-arg name="emf" ref="entityManagerFactory"></constructor-arg>
  </bean>
  
  <bean id="runtimeDataService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.RuntimeDataServiceImpl">
    <property name="commandService" ref="transactionCmdService"/>
    <property name="identityProvider" ref="identityProvider"/>
    <property name="taskService" ref="taskService"/>
  </bean>
  
  <bean id="deploymentService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.KModuleDeploymentService" depends-on="entityManagerFactory" init-method="onInit">
    <property name="bpmn2Service" ref="definitionService"/>
    <property name="emf" ref="entityManagerFactory"/>
    <property name="managerFactory" ref="runtimeManagerFactory"/>
    <property name="identityProvider" ref="identityProvider"/>
    <property name="runtimeDataService" ref="runtimeDataService"/>
  </bean>

By including the appropriate dependencies such as jbpm-services-api, jbpm-kie-services, and kie-spring api you will be able to @Autowire jbpm Objects in SpringBoot:

  <dependency>
      <groupId>org.jbpm</groupId>
      <artifactId>jbpm-services-api</artifactId>
      <version>${jbpm.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.jbpm</groupId>
      <artifactId>jbpm-kie-services</artifactId>
      <version>${jbpm.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.kie</groupId>
      <artifactId>kie-spring</artifactId>
      <version>${jbpm.version}</version>
    </dependency>

You can check the full pom.xml required to compile your project at: https://github.com/mswiderski/jbpm-examples/blob/master/spring-boot-jbpm/pom.xml

Now, as an example, consider the following ProcessInstanceController which will let you show, signal or abort existing Processes using the REST Api:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/processinstance")
public class ProcessInstanceController {
	
	@Autowired
	private RuntimeDataService runtimeDataService;
	
	@Autowired
	private ProcessService processService;

	@RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public Collection<ProcessInstanceDesc> getProcessInstances() {
		
		Collection<ProcessInstanceDesc> processInstances = runtimeDataService.getProcessInstances(new QueryContext(0, 100, "status", true));

		return processInstances;
 
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/show", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public ProcessInstanceDesc getProcessInstance(@RequestParam String id) {
		long processInstanceId = Long.parseLong(id);
		ProcessInstanceDesc processInstance = runtimeDataService.getProcessInstanceById(processInstanceId);

		return processInstance;
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/abort", method = RequestMethod.POST)
	public String abortProcessInstance(@RequestParam String id) {
		
		processService.abortProcessInstance(Long.parseLong(id));
		
		return "Instance (" + id + ") aborted successfully";
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/signal", method = RequestMethod.POST)
	public String signalProcessInstance(@RequestParam String id, @RequestParam String signal,
			@RequestParam String data) {
		
		processService.signalProcessInstance(Long.parseLong(id), signal, data);

		return "Signal sent to instance (" + id + ") successfully";
	}
}

On the other hand, in order to start new Process Instances you can use the following ProcessDefController and the “/new” Rest API:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/processdef")
public class ProcessDefController {
	
	@Autowired
	private RuntimeDataService runtimeDataService;
	
	@Autowired
	private ProcessService processService;
	
	@Autowired
	private DefinitionService definitionService;

	@RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public Collection<ProcessDefinition> getProcessDef() {
		
		Collection<ProcessDefinition> processDefinitions = runtimeDataService.getProcesses(new QueryContext(0, 100));

		return processDefinitions;
 
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/show", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public ProcessDefinition getProcessDefinition(@RequestParam String deployment, @RequestParam String id) {
		
		ProcessDefinition definition = runtimeDataService.getProcessesByDeploymentIdProcessId(deployment, id);
		
		return definition;
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/new", method = RequestMethod.POST)
	public Long newProcessInstance(@RequestParam String deploymentId, @RequestParam String processId,
			@RequestParam Map<String,String> allRequestParams) {
		
		long processInstanceId = processService.startProcess(deploymentId, processId, new HashMap<String, Object>(allRequestParams));
		
		return processInstanceId;
 
	}
}  

Let’s test it! Before running our SpringBoot Rest application, let’s make available in our local git repository a jbpm artifact. Download the following sample project which contains a simple Business Rule and a jBPM project: https://github.com/jesuino/hello-kie-server

Install the jbpm artifact with Maven:

$ cd hello-kie-server
$ mvn clean install

As a result, you should have available in your Maven repository the following Group Artifact Version combination:

<group-id>org.mastertheboss.kieserver</group-id>
<artifact-id>hello-kie-server</artifact-id>
<version>1.0</version>

Now let’s get back to the jbpm-springboot application. Compile it and install it with:

$ cd spring-boot-jbpm
$ mvn clean install

Execute the SpringBoot application, passing as argument the GAV combination :

java -jar target/spring-boot-jbpm-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar org.mastertheboss.kieserver hello-kie-server 1.0

The embedded Tomcat Server will start on the default port 8080.

If you take a look at the Application class, you will see that the startup arguments are used to Deploy the Process definition as KModuleDeploymentUnit:

@Configuration
@ComponentScan
@EnableAutoConfiguration(exclude=HibernateJpaAutoConfiguration.class)
@ImportResource(value= {"classpath:config/jee-tx-context.xml",
		"classpath:config/jpa-context.xml", "classpath:config/jbpm-context.xml", "classpath:config/security-context.xml",})
public class Application {
	
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ConfigurableApplicationContext ctx = SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
        if (args.length > 1) {
        	
        	try {
	        	System.out.println("Params available trying to deploy " + args);
		        DeploymentService deploymentService = (DeploymentService) ctx.getBean("deploymentService");
		        
		        KModuleDeploymentUnit unit = new KModuleDeploymentUnit(args[0], args[1], args[2]);
		        deploymentService.deploy(unit);
        	} catch (Throwable e) {
        		System.out.println("Error when deploying = " + e.getMessage());
        	}
        }
    }
}

Let’s test our application! first of all, we’ll see if the sample hello-kie-server is found from the local Repository. We will use the ProcessDefController and its “/show” Api for this purpose:

$ curl -X GET  -u 'john:john1' "http://localhost:8080/processdef/show?id=hello&deployment=org.mastertheboss.kieserver:hello-kie-server:1.0"

Notice we had to pass the login credentials (found in the roles.properties file) and some @RequestParam attribute to identify the ProcessDefinition

Here’s the output:

{

    "id": "hello",
    "name": "hello",
    "version": "1.0",
    "packageName": "org.jbpm",
    "type": "RuleFlow",
    "knowledgeType": "PROCESS",
    "namespace": "org.jbpm",
    "originalPath": null,
    "deploymentId": "org.mastertheboss.kieserver:hello-kie-server:1.0",
    "encodedProcessSource":
   . . . .
    }

Now let’s start one process instance, using the again the ProcessDefController and its “/new” Api:

curl -X POST  -u 'john:john1' --data 'deploymentId=org.mastertheboss.kieserver:hello-kie-server:1.0&processId=hello&name=Frank' http://localhost:8080/processdef/new

Finally, let’s check through the ProcessInstanceController and its “/processinstance” request path, the list of processes running:

curl -X GET  -u 'john:john1' "http://localhost:8080/processinstance/"

Here’s the output:

[

    {
        "id": 1,
        "processId": "hello",
        "processName": "hello",
        "processVersion": "1.0",
        "state": 2,
        "deploymentId": "org.mastertheboss.kieserver:hello-kie-server:1.0",
        "initiator": "john",
        "dataTimeStamp": 1494088784933,
        "processInstanceDescription": "hello",
        "activeTasks": null
    }

]

For the sake of completeness, we’ll mention that you can check individual process instance state, through the “/show” method, passing the Process Id as argument:

curl -X GET -u 'john:john1' http://localhost:8080/processinstance/show?id=1

{

    "id": 1,
    "processId": "hello",
    "processName": "hello",
    "processVersion": "1.0",
    "state": 2,
    "deploymentId": "org.mastertheboss.kieserver:hello-kie-server:1.0",
    "initiator": "john",
    "dataTimeStamp": 1494088784933,
    "processInstanceDescription": "hello",
    "activeTasks": [ ]

}

That’s all! enjoy SpringBoot and jBPM 6!

Do you want some more Spring stuff ? check Spring Boot Tutorials !

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