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Workflow steps

Workflow steps form basic “building blocks” for process automation. Most steps directly correspond to OpenSearch or plugin API operations, such as CRUD operations on machine learning (ML) connectors, models, and agents. Some steps simplify the configuration by reusing the body expected by these APIs across multiple steps. For example, once you configure a tool, you can use it with multiple agents.

Workflow step fields

Workflow steps are actively being developed to expand automation capabilities. Workflow step (graph node) configuration includes the following fields.

Field Data type Required/Optional Description
id String Required A user-provided ID for the step. The ID must be unique within a given workflow and is useful for identifying resources created by the step. For example, a register_agent step may return an agent_id that has been registered. Using this ID, you can determine which step produced which resource.
type String Required The type of action to take, such as deploy_model, which corresponds to the API for which the step is used. Multiple steps may share the same type but must each have their own unique ID. For a list of supported types, see Workflow step types.
previous_node_inputs Object Optional A key-value map specifying user inputs that are produced by a previous step in the workflow. For each key-value pair, the key is the previous step’s id and the value is an API body field name (such as model_id) that will be produced as an output of a previous step in the workflow. For example, register_remote_model (key) may produce a model_id (value) that is required for a subsequent deploy_model step.
A graph edge is automatically added to the workflow connecting the previous step’s key as the source and the current node as the destination.
In some cases, you can include additional inputs in this field.
user_inputs Object Optional A key-value map of inputs supported by the corresponding API for this specific step. Some inputs are required for an API, while others are optional. Required inputs may be specified here, if known, or in the previous_node_inputs field. The Get Workflow Steps API identifies required inputs and step outputs.
Substitutions are supported in string values, lists of strings, and maps with string values. The pattern ${{previous_step_id.output_key}} will be replaced by the value in the previous step’s output with the given key. For example, if a parameter map in the user inputs includes a key embedding_model_id with a value ${{deploy_embedding_model.model_id}}, then the model_id output of the deploy_embedding_model step will be substituted here. This performs a similar function to the previous_node_input map but is not validated and does not automatically infer edges.
In some cases, you can include additional inputs in this field.

Workflow step types

The following table lists the workflow step types. The user_inputs fields for these steps correspond directly to the linked APIs.

Step type Corresponding API Description
noop No API A no-operation (no-op) step that does nothing. It may be useful in some cases for synchronizing parallel steps.
create_connector Create Connector Creates a connector to a model hosted on a third-party platform.
delete_connector Delete Connector Deletes a connector to a model hosted on a third-party platform.
register_model_group Register Model Group Registers a model group. The model group will be deleted automatically once no model is present in the group.
register_remote_model Register Model (remote) Registers a model hosted on a third-party platform. If the user_inputs field contains a deploy key that is set to true, also deploys the model.
register_local_pretrained_model Register Model (pretrained) Registers an OpenSearch-provided pretrained text embedding model that is hosted on your OpenSearch cluster. If the user_inputs field contains a deploy key that is set to true, also deploys the model.
register_local_sparse_encoding_model Register Model (sparse) Registers an OpenSearch-provided pretrained sparse encoding model that is hosted on your OpenSearch cluster. If the user_inputs field contains a deploy key that is set to true, also deploys the model.
register_local_custom_model Register Model (custom) Registers a custom model that is hosted on your OpenSearch cluster. If the user_inputs field contains a deploy key that is set to true, also deploys the model.
delete_model Delete Model Unregisters and deletes a model.
deploy_model Deploy Model Deploys a registered model into memory.
undeploy_model Undeploy Model Undeploys a deployed model from memory.
register_agent Register Agent API Registers an agent as part of the ML Commons Agent Framework.
delete_agent Delete Agent API Deletes an agent.
create_tool No API A special-case non-API step encapsulating the specification of a tool for an agent in the ML Commons Agent Framework. These will be listed as previous_node_inputs for the appropriate register agent step, with the value set to tools.
create_index Create Index Creates a new OpenSearch index. The inputs include index_name, which should be the name of the index to be created, and configurations, which contains the payload body of a regular REST request for creating an index.
create_ingest_pipeline Create Ingest Pipeline Creates or updates an ingest pipeline. The inputs include pipeline_id, which should be the ID of the pipeline, and configurations, which contains the payload body of a regular REST request for creating an ingest pipeline.
create_search_pipeline Create Search Pipeline Creates or updates a search pipeline. The inputs include pipeline_id, which should be the ID of the pipeline, and configurations, which contains the payload body of a regular REST request for creating a search pipeline.

Additional fields

You can include the following additional fields in the user_inputs field when indicated.

Field Data type Description
node_timeout Time units A user-provided timeout for this step. For example, 20s for a 20-second timeout.
deploy Boolean Applicable to the Register Model step type. If set to true, also executes the Deploy Model step.
tools_order List Applicable only to the Register Agent step type. Specifies the ordering of tools. For example, specify ["foo_tool", "bar_tool"] to sequence those tools in that order.

You can include the following additional fields in the previous_node_inputs field when indicated.

Field Data type Description
model_id String The model_id is used as an input for several steps. As a special case for the Register Agent step type, if an llm.model_id field is not present in the user_inputs and not present in previous_node_inputs, the model_id field from the previous node may be used as a backup for the model ID.

Example workflow steps

For example workflow step implementations, see the Workflow tutorial.

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