Abada Engine is a lightweight, embeddable BPMN-based workflow engine written in Java. Designed for teams that want full control over business process automation — without relying on bloated or proprietary platforms.
Inspired by the mythical African unicorn Abada — rare, agile, and powerful.
- 🚀 Lightweight and pluggable — embeddable into any Spring Boot app
- 🧠 Clean BPMN 2.0 execution model (start events, user tasks, sequence flows)
- 🧾 Support for assignee, candidate users, and groups
- 💾 Persistent process and task state with automatic recovery on reboot
- 🔁 State reload logic with BPMN XML stored directly in the database
- 🔍 REST API to deploy, start, claim, complete, and inspect processes
- 📦 Java 21 + Spring Boot 3.4 compatible
- 🖼️ Ready for integration with bpmn-js for live rendering
git clone https://github.com/bashizip/abada-engine.git
cd abada-engine
mvn spring-boot:runVisit http://localhost:8080/engine/processes to list deployed processes.
- ✅ Process and task persistence using H2 (with support for JDBC)
- ✅ State reload after reboot — recover processes and tasks in memory
- ✅ Clean orchestration with
advance()andUserTaskPayload - ✅ Auto-deploy
simple-two-task.bpmnindevprofile - ✅ REST APIs:
GET /engine/processes— list deployed processesGET /engine/processes/{id}— process metadata + BPMN XMLGET /engine/processes/{id}/diagram— raw XML for bpmn-js
- ✅ Integration test: Alice → Bob → complete flow
- ✅
/docs/persistence.md: internal docs on recovery & limitations
| Status | Task | Description | Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| ✅ | BPMN Parser (basic) | Parse XML: start, user tasks, sequence flows | v0.1.0-alpha |
| ✅ | Deploy via REST | Upload .bpmn via multipart |
v0.1.0-alpha |
| ✅ | Start / Claim / Complete | Execute process, manage user tasks | v0.1.0-alpha |
| ✅ | Assignee & Candidate Logic | Support assignee, candidateUsers, candidateGroups |
v0.3.0-alpha |
| ✅ | In-memory to DB persistence | Store process instances & tasks | v0.4.0-alpha |
| ✅ | Reload from DB at startup | Rebuild engine state on reboot | v0.5.0-alpha |
| ✅ | Process listing API | Query deployed processes via REST | v0.5.0-alpha |
| 🕓 | Publish to Maven Central | Make it a reusable Java library | v0.7.0-alpha |
| 🕓 | Exclusive + Parallel Gateway | Add condition-based routing and fork/join | v0.6.0-alpha |
| 🕓 | Service Task Support | Simulate service tasks or call stubs | v0.6.0-alpha |
| 🕓 | Sub-processes & Events | Add <subProcess>, <boundaryEvent> |
v0.8.0-alpha |
| 🕓 | BPMN Schema Validation | Validate input XML using official BPMN XSD | v0.6.0-alpha |
| 🕓 | History Logging | Track transitions & task states | v0.6.0-alpha |
Build your own engine — not your own prison.
Abada Engine is built to be lightweight, hackable, and open. Whether you're building internal automation or selling workflow-driven platforms, Abada gives you full control — from task routing to UI integration.