Trigger Workflows

Overview

Moose workflows can be triggered programmatically from various sources including APIs, events, external systems, or manual execution. This enables you to build reactive data processing pipelines and on-demand task execution.

Manual Workflow Execution

The simplest way to trigger a workflow is using the Moose CLI:

# Run a workflow manually
moose workflow run example
 
# Run with input parameters
moose workflow run example --input '{"name": "John", "email": "john@example.com"}'

Passing Input to Workflows

When triggering workflows, you can pass input data that will be passed to the starting task:

moose workflow run data-processing --input '{
  "sourceUrl": "https://api.example.com/data",
  "apiKey": "your-api-key",
  "batchSize": 100
}'

The input is parsed as JSON and passed to the workflow’s starting task.

API-Triggered Workflows

Trigger workflows directly via an HTTP POST endpoint exposed by the webserver.

• Endpoint: /workflows/{workflowName}/trigger

Request

• Body: optional JSON payload passed to the workflow’s starting task.

Example:

curl -X POST 'http://localhost:4000/workflows/data-processing/trigger' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "inputValue": "process-user-data",
    "priority": "high"
  }'

Authentication

• Local development: no auth required.
• Production: protect the endpoint using an API key. Follow these steps:
  1. Generate a token and hashed key (see the Token Generation section in the API Auth docs):
     Terminal

     moose generate hash-token
     # Outputs:
     # - ENV API Key (hashed) → for environment/config
     # - Bearer Token (plain) → for Authorization header
  2. Configure the server with the hashed key:

     MOOSE_CONSUMPTION_API_KEY="<hashed_key_from_output>"
  3. Call the endpoint using the plain Bearer token from step 1:
     Terminal

     curl -X POST 'https://your-host/workflows/data-processing/trigger' \
       -H 'Authorization: Bearer <plain_token_from_output>' \
       -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
       -d '{"inputValue":"process-user-data"}'

For details, see the API Auth page under “Token Generation” and “API Endpoints”.

Response

{
  "workflowId": "data-processing-<hash>",
  "runId": "<id>",
}

In local development, the response also includes a dashboardUrl to Temporal UI:

{
  "workflowId": "data-processing-<hash>",
  "runId": "<id>",
  "dashboardUrl": "http://localhost:8080/namespaces/<namespace>/workflows/data-processing-<hash>/<runId>/history"
}

Terminate a Running Workflow

After triggering a workflow, you can terminate it via an HTTP endpoint.

• Endpoint: POST /workflows/{workflowId}/terminate

Request

• Local development (no auth):

curl -X POST 'http://localhost:4000/workflows/data-processing-<hash>/terminate'

• Production (Bearer token required):

curl -X POST 'https://your-host/workflows/data-processing-<hash>/terminate' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <plain_token_from_output>''