Workflow engine variables

Workflow engine variables are expressions that enable you to pass data between Steps while editing an Automation. You may wish to use previous Steps’ outputs or statuses in other Steps of your Automation. This could be to perform different operations on given results, such as arithmetic, logical, comparison operations, etc. Expression language also enables you to use your Automation’s input parameters as step inputs.

The easiest way to create these expressions is by using the variable picker. Whether an expression was written manually or selected using the variable picker, it will be saved as part of the Automation YAML using the syntax described below.

Automation inputs

To reference Automation output, use the following syntax:

{{ inputs.param_name }}

Event payload

To reference data in an event that triggered an event-based Automation, use the following syntax:

{{ event.payload }}             # full event payload
{{ event.payload.issue.user }}  # fetch the value of user attribute in event payload that can look like this: { "issue": {"user": "me" }}

Step output

To reference step’s output, use the following syntax:

{{ steps.S1.output }}

💡 S1 refers to the step’s ID. You may also use last instead of the step ID to get the output of the last executed step.

JSON dot walking

The expression language supports JSON dot walking, which enables you to copy specific key-value pairs from a JSON object output and use the specific key-value pair in subsequent steps of your automation. For example:

Step status

To use a previous step’s output, use the following syntax:

{{ steps.S1.status }}

Automation variables

To use Automation’s variables, use the following syntax:

{{ variables.variable_name }}

Metadata variables

The following metadata variables get populated for each automation:

{{ metadata.automation_name }}
{{ metadata.automation_url }}
{{ metadata.automation_id }}
{{ metadata.workspace_id }}
{{ metadata.pack_id }}
{{ metadata.execution_id }}
{{ metadata.execution_url }}
{{ metadata.start_time }}
{{ metadata.user_email }}
{{ metadata.user_groups }}

Python syntax

In python steps variables, steps and inputs are exposed using the context variable. Thus, all the above expressions can be accessed using the following expressions in python:

context.inputs.param_name
context.steps.S1.output
context.steps.S1.output.user.id
context.steps.last.output
context.steps.S1.status
context.event.payload
context.event.payload.issue.user
context.metadata.automation_name

In python, variables can be set like this:

context.variables.variable_name = value // setting variables