In-app Workflow Builder

Let your customers build their own automation workflows between your app and external apps.

This approach is best for products where customers need flexibility to create custom integrations without your involvement.

How It Works

Your customers connect apps — Using the integration catalog, customers connect their accounts in external apps.
They build workflows — Using your workflow builder UI, customers create automation workflows with triggers and actions.
Membrane provides the building blocks — Event triggers, actions, and data schemas from connected apps are available through the Membrane API.
Your app executes workflows — When triggers fire, your app orchestrates the workflow execution 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 is created, updated, or deleted.

What you build:

UI for customers to select an app, data collection, and event type (created/updated/deleted)
Backend that creates Membrane flow instances to subscribe to events
Webhook endpoint to receive event notifications

What 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 in a workflow that do something in external apps — like creating a contact, sending a message, or updating a record.

What you build:

UI for customers to select actions and configure inputs
Input mapping UI that lets customers map data from previous steps
Execution logic that runs actions in sequence

What Membrane provides:

Pre-built actions for connected apps via the Actions API
Input schemas for each action
Action execution with automatic authentication

Workflow Execution

Your app is responsible for orchestrating workflow execution — receiving trigger events, running actions in sequence, and handling errors.

Common patterns:

Synchronous execution — Run actions one after another, passing outputs as inputs
Async execution with queues — Use a workflow engine like Temporal for reliable execution
Parallel execution — Run independent actions concurrently

Example Implementation

See our Workflow Builder Example for a complete reference implementation built with:

Next.js — Web application and API routes
Temporal — Workflow orchestration engine
MongoDB — Workflow and run storage
Membrane React SDK — Integration UI components

The example demonstrates:

Event trigger configuration with data collection selection
Action configuration with input mapping
Workflow execution via Temporal workers
Run history and debugging