FlowDrop Workflow Specification 1.0-draft

Stored metadata is never authoritative at run time

The rule

Normative: this is the rule
  1. Before a workflow runs, every node is re-enriched from its live node type and the workflow is normalized from the result.
  2. Metadata stored with the workflow is never authoritative at run time.

What it means

Enrichment at save time (SCH-25) is not enough on its own: a workflow that was correctly enriched when it was last saved is re-enriched again from scratch every time it runs, whatever it already carries. There is no "already correct, skip it" shortcut — stored metadata is read for the anchor alone, and everything else about the node type is fetched fresh at run time.

Example

A node's stored metadata carries a description that no longer matches the node type it names.

The description in the node's stored metadatastale
"Stale description"
The description the compiled node carries into the runresolved
"Fresh description"

The run uses the second value; the first never reaches execution.

Rule identifiers are permanent and are never renumbered. Each implementation publishes its own standing against these rules; this specification does not.spec 1.0-draft · SCH-29 · changed in spec 1.0