Introducing Elsa Workflows 3: A Modern .NET Workflow Engine

Elsa Workflows 3 is an open-source set of .NET libraries that brings powerful workflow orchestration directly into your .NET applications. Whether you’re building long-running business processes or lightweight integrations, Elsa offers a flexible, extensible toolkit to define, execute, and visualize workflows—all with minimal overhead and maximum control Elsa Workflows 3 | Elsa 3.

What Is Elsa Workflows?

At its core, Elsa is a workflow engine designed as "Lego blocks" for .NET developers. It provides:

• Programmatic Definitions: Define workflows entirely in C# code, giving you full control over logic and structure.

• Visual Designer: A web-based drag-and-drop interface (Elsa Studio) that empowers non-developers and UX-focused team members to author and modify workflows without touching code.

• Declarative JSON: Store workflow definitions as JSON documents, enabling versioning, migrations, or integrations with external systems Elsa Workflows 3 | Elsa 3.

These three approaches can even be mixed in a single application, allowing teams to adopt the model that best fits their workflow requirements.

Key Use Cases

Elsa shines in scenarios where you need reliable, maintainable workflow orchestration:

1. Embed in Existing .NET Apps
   Seamlessly integrate workflow execution capabilities into your ASP.NET Core, Worker Service, or Console applications.

2. Standalone Workflow Server
   Deploy Elsa Server with Studio as an independent microservice, exposing REST APIs to kick off, monitor, and manage workflows across your organization.

3. Containerized Deployments
   Choose from prebuilt Docker and Docker Compose images—complete with persistent database configuration and optional Traefik setup—to get a workflow server running in minutes Elsa Workflows 3 | Elsa 3.

Spotlight on Features

Elsa Workflows 3 is packed with powerful capabilities:

• Long & Short-Running
  From millisecond-scale tasks to processes that stretch across days or even years, Elsa tracks state and resumes workflows seamlessly.

• Rich Activity Library
  Out-of-the-box activities for email, HTTP endpoints, timers, decision logic, and more—plus the ability to craft your own custom activities.

• Event-Driven Triggers
  Kick off workflows based on HTTP requests, message queues, schedules, or custom events, enabling reactive integrations.

• Dynamic Expressions
  Use C#, JavaScript, or Liquid templating to evaluate values and control flow at runtime.

• Extensibility
  A modular architecture makes adding new storage providers, transport mechanisms (e.g., MassTransit), or entirely custom activities straightforward.

• Scalable & Distributed
  Elsa can run across multiple nodes, with clustering support for high availability and throughput.

• Web-Based Workflow Designer
  Elsa Studio offers a reusable, embeddable designer component that fits right into your admin portals and management UI Elsa Workflows 3 | Elsa 3.

Getting Started: “Hello World” in a Console App

Let’s walk through creating a simple “Hello World” workflow in a .NET Console application:

1. Create the Project

   bash

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   dotnet new console -n ElsaConsole cd ElsaConsole

2. Add the Elsa Package

   bash

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   dotnet add package Elsa

3. Configure Services & Run
   Replace the contents of Program.cs with:

   csharp

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   using Elsa.Extensions; using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection; var services = new ServiceCollection(); services.AddElsa(); var serviceProvider = services.BuildServiceProvider(); var activity = new WriteLine("Hello World!"); var workflowRunner = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<IWorkflowRunner>(); await workflowRunner.RunAsync(activity);

   This code sets up Elsa’s services, creates a simple WriteLine activity, and executes it. Elsa Workflows 3 | Elsa 3

Extending Elsa: From Custom Activities to Triggers

While the out-of-the-box activity library covers most common scenarios, Elsa is built for customization:

• Custom Activities
  Implement the IActivity interface to introduce domain-specific tasks—whether that’s calling proprietary APIs, handling file operations, or integrating with legacy systems.

• Reusable Triggers (Preview)
  Define triggers once and reuse them across multiple workflows, streamlining action-based orchestration.

• Multitenancy
  Host multiple tenants on a single Elsa instance, with isolation at the workflow definition, data, and execution levels.

For more on extending Elsa, check out the Custom Activities guide.

Known Limitations & Roadmap

Elsa is under active development. Current areas of improvement include:

• Designer support for Sequence and StateMachine activities (beyond Flowchart).

• UI input validation and enhanced error handling in the designer.

• Expanded documentation and more example scenarios.

The team welcomes contributions—whether it’s code, documentation, or feedback—to help Elsa evolve into the de facto .NET workflow platform Elsa Workflows 3 | Elsa 3.

Conclusion

Elsa Workflows 3 brings rich workflow capabilities to the .NET ecosystem with minimal friction. Its hybrid approach—combining code, JSON, and a visual designer—means both developers and non-technical stakeholders can collaborate on process automation. Whether you’re building lightweight integrations or orchestrating complex, long-running processes, Elsa provides the building blocks to get up and running quickly and scale as your needs grow.

Ready to dive in? Visit the Elsa Workflows 3 documentation and start building your first workflow today!