In-app Workflow Builder

Let your tenants build their own automation workflows between your app and external apps. Your agent can also create and manage workflows programmatically. Membrane provides the triggers, actions, and data schemas — you build the workflow UI and orchestration.

Getting Started

1. Complete the Quickstart: Product Integrations guide.
2. Ask your coding agent to build the workflow builder:

"Build a workflow builder UI where my tenants can create automations between our app and their connected external apps. Use Membrane for triggers and actions."

If you want to learn how it works under the hood — read on.

How It Works

1. Tenants connect apps — Using the Integration Catalog, tenants connect their accounts.
2. They build workflows — Using your workflow builder UI, tenants create automations with triggers and actions.
3. Membrane provides building blocks — Event triggers, actions, and data schemas from connected apps are available through the API.
4. Your app executes workflows — When triggers fire, your app orchestrates the steps using Membrane actions.

Key Components

Event Triggers

Workflows start when something happens in an external app. Membrane provides event subscriptions that notify your app when data changes — via data-record-created, data-record-updated, and data-record-deleted events.

You build:

• UI for selecting an app, data collection, and event type
• Backend that creates Membrane flow instances for event subscriptions
• Webhook endpoint to receive event notifications

Membrane provides:

• Event subscriptions for connected apps
• Data collection metadata (what types of data are available)
• Event payloads with record data

Workflow Actions

Actions are the steps that do something in external apps — create a contact, send a message, update a record.

You build:

• UI for selecting and configuring actions
• Input mapping UI (map data from previous steps)
• Execution logic that runs actions in sequence

Membrane provides:

• Pre-built actions for connected apps
• Input/output schemas for each action
• Action execution with automatic authentication

Workflow Execution

Your app orchestrates execution — receiving trigger events, running actions in sequence, and handling errors.

Common patterns:

• Synchronous — Run actions one after another, passing outputs as inputs
• Async with queues — Use Temporal or similar for reliable execution
• Parallel — Run independent actions concurrently

Example Implementation

See the Workflow Builder Example for a complete reference implementation with Next.js, Temporal, MongoDB, and Membrane React SDK.