managedcode Windows Workflow Foundation
Trigger On
- working on WF activities, workflows, or designer-backed process logic
- reviewing long-lived workflow state and persistence behavior
- assessing whether to keep, isolate, or replace Workflow Foundation
Workflow
- Treat WF as legacy infrastructure and start by understanding what workflow behavior is still business-critical before proposing replacement.
- Separate workflow host concerns, activity logic, persistence, and integration points so risk is visible.
- Avoid half-migrations that leave workflow state and business rules split across two orchestration systems without ownership.
- If replacement is needed, define explicit equivalence for triggers, compensation, persistence, and audit expectations.
- Stabilize current behavior with targeted tests or scenario captures before changing designer-driven artifacts.
- Validate with representative long-running and failure scenarios, not just a single successful execution path.
Deliver
- practical maintenance or migration guidance for WF
- clear boundaries around host, workflow, and persistence responsibilities
- risk-aware change plans for legacy process logic
Validate
- business-critical workflow behavior is identified before change
- migration work preserves state and audit expectations
- designer artifacts are treated carefully
References
- Migration Guidance - decision framework for keeping, replacing, or isolating WF; migration targets and steps; common pitfalls
- Maintenance Patterns - host management, persistence, activity design, testing, and operational patterns for WF systems