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A Camunda 8 Connector to find the best cocktail ever!
Welcome to Camunda's Platform 8 custom connector exercise! In this workshop you will learn to:
- setup Camunda 8
- setup connector development kit
- develop your own connector and run it in runtime evnironment
To structure this course we are going to split it into 6 exercises:
- Create an API for our cluster
- Create a Connector template
- Use the Connector template in a model
- Setup Connector SDK and implement Connector function
- Running the connector
- Find out what is the best cocktail!
Get started with Camunda Platform 8 by creating a Camunda Platform 8 SaaS trial.
https://camunda.com/get-started/
To be able to connect to our C8 cluster, we will have to expose an API. Later on we will use it to connect our local zeebe worker instance with the custom connector to the cluster.
You can also refer to this article when setting up client connection credentials (https://docs.camunda.io/docs/guides/setup-client-connection-credentials/)
Good job! You just configured an API client for your cluster!
Now let's head to the modeler. If you just created your C8 instance, then probably you will have to start with creating a new project. Once you do, let's create a connector template.
The first step in creating your custom connector is to create a connector template. The connector template is the definition of the custom modeling element that users can place into models to use your custom connector. We’re going to create a new connector template and deploy it into the Web Modeler in Camunda Platform 8 SaaS.
https://docs.camunda.io/docs/components/connectors/custom-built-connectors/connector-sdk/#connector-template -> This documentation describes creating a connector template, and gives an example of the schema that is used
If you want to, you can just go ahead to the /element-templates directory and copy-paste the existing template.
Now that our connector template is ready and published, we can go ahead and use it in our process definition.
Remember to fill in the properties accordingly to your needs.
The next step is to implement the connector functionality.
The Connector SDK provides the framework for implementing a connector function. The connector function is an environment agnostic implementation, which means that we can deploy it in a number of ways – as a Zeebe worker, or using a connector bridge as a Lambda function.
We are going to run our connector in the Job Worker Connector Runtime. https://github.com/camunda/connector-sdk/tree/main/runtime-util
To make the implementation easier, you can always start with repository template provided by Camunda. https://github.com/camunda/connector-template
This way you can just clone it locally and customize it according to your needs.
You can also go to /exercises and copy the body of the connector from Exercise4.txt.
Our connector needs to run in a connector runtime. The connector runtime invokes our code in response to available work.
We will use the Connector SDK’s Job Worker Connector Runtime. This runtime starts a job worker that wraps our connector’s function, invoking it when the worker receives a job from the engine.
There are several options for integrating our connector with the runtime environment. Including the runtime in our connector as a maven dependency and then explicitly wrapping our connector function is one option. This method couples our connector with the runtime environment.
During this exercise I would like you to paste the environmental variables in to the ./resources/zeebe.web.app.properties
and then start the application.
Now we are ready to go!
Deploy and run your process instance, find out what is your chose cocktail!