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ZenBPM - Go BPMN Engine

ZenBPM is a next-generation Business Process Management (BPM) engine written in Go, designed to execute BPMN 2.0 process definitions.

It provides a lightweight, cloud-ready platform for defining, deploying, and executing business processes with minimal overhead and maximum flexibility.

What is BPMN?​

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a business process model. It provides businesses with a standard notation that is readily understandable by all business stakeholders.

Key Features​

  • Cloud-Native Architecture: Designed for cloud environments with containerization and orchestration support
  • Lightweight Design: Minimal resource footprint with fast startup time and efficient execution
  • BPMN 2.0 Support: Execute standard BPMN 2.0 process definitions
  • REST API: Comprehensive REST API for process management
  • gRPC Interface: High-performance gRPC interface for system integration
  • Distributed Architecture: Support for clustering and distributed execution
  • Process Elements Support:
    • Start and End Events
    • Service Tasks
    • User Tasks - handled as Service Tasks
    • Exclusive Gateways
    • Inclusive Gateways
    • Parallel Gateways
    • Event-Based Gateways
    • Intermediate Catch and Throw Events
  • Persistence: Durable state storage using rqlite
  • Observability: Integrated with OpenTelemetry for tracing and metrics

Getting Started​

Installation​

# Clone the repository
git clone git@github.com:pbinitiative/zenbpm.git

# Start application
cd zenbpm
make run

# Run tests
make test

Docker​

You can run ZenBPM in a Docker container:

docker build -t zenbpm .
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 -p 9090:9090 --name zenbpm zenbpm

Architecture​

ZenBPM is built with a modular architecture:

  • BPMN Engine: Core component that executes process definitions, manages process instances, and handles task execution
  • DMN Engine: Decision Model and Notation (DMN) engine that evaluates business rules and decision tables
  • Storage Layer: Manages persistence of process state
  • API Layer: Provides REST and gRPC interfaces
  • Cluster Management: Coordinates distributed execution

API Reference​

ZenBPM provides both REST and gRPC APIs: