Process Manager
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
A process manager is the project coordinator for long-running workflows. It tracks state, receives events, decides what command to send next, and handles timeouts. It's the air traffic controller keeping the whole multi-step saga on track.
Real Talk
A pattern for coordinating complex, long-running business processes that span multiple aggregates or services. A process manager maintains state, listens for events, and dispatches commands based on the current state and incoming events. Unlike sagas, process managers have explicit state machines and can handle more complex flows.
When You'll Hear This
"The order fulfillment process manager tracks the state from placement through payment to delivery." / "Use a process manager when your saga has conditional branching or timeouts."
Related Terms
Event Handler
An event handler is the code that says 'oh, something happened? Let me react to that.
Orchestration
Orchestration is the process of automatically managing, coordinating, and scheduling where your containers run.
Saga
A saga is a series of steps where each step has an undo action. If step 3 fails, you run the undo for steps 2 and 1.
State Machine
A state machine is a system that can be in one of a defined set of states, transitioning between them based on inputs.