Introduction and Motivation

We use the BPMN Sketch Miner tool to visualize event/command flows in our application layers. You can model flows (for example, as resulting from an Event Storming workshop) in the CML application layer of a Bounded Context and then generate the BPMN Sketch Miner DSL or directly open the tool from Context Mapper.

Example Flow

The following CML code illustrates how you can model flows. A complete documentation on the syntax can be found in the language reference.

/**
 * A flow inspired by the Lakeside Mutual project (https://github.com/Microservice-API-Patterns/LakesideMutual).
 * Find the original process visualization here:
 * https://github.com/Microservice-API-Patterns/LakesideMutual/blob/master/policy-management-backend/src/main/java/com/lakesidemutual/policymanagement/domain/insurancequoterequest/RequestStatus.java
 **/
BoundedContext InsuranceQuotes {
  Application {
    Flow QuoteRequestFlow {
      operation submitRequest delegates to QuoteRequest[-> SUBMITTED] emits event RequestSubmitted
      event RequestSubmitted + RequestSubmitted triggers operation checkRequest
      operation checkRequest delegates to QuoteRequest[SUBMITTED -> RECEIVED X REJECTED] emits event QuoteReceived X RequestRejected
      event QuoteReceived triggers operation receiveAndCheckQuote
      operation receiveAndCheckQuote delegates to QuoteRequest[RECEIVED -> REJECTED X ACCEPTED X EXPIRED] emits event QuoteRejected X QuoteAccepted X QuoteExpired
      event QuoteAccepted triggers operation accept
      operation accept delegates to QuoteRequest[ACCEPTED -> POLICY_CREATED X EXPIRED] emits event PolicyCreated X QuoteExpired
    }
  }
  Aggregate QuoteRequest {
    Entity Request {
      aggregateRoot
    }
    DomainEvent RequestSubmitted
    DomainEvent QuoteReceived
    DomainEvent RequestRejected
    DomainEvent QuoteRejected
    DomainEvent QuoteAccepted
    DomainEvent QuoteExpired
    DomainEvent PolicyCreated
    Service QuoteRequestService {
      void submitRequest(@Request request);
      void checkRequest(@Request request);
      void receiveAndCheckQuote(@Request request);
      void reject(@Request request);
      void accept(@Request request);
    }
    enum RequestState {
      aggregateLifecycle
       SUBMITTED, RECEIVED, REJECTED, ACCEPTED, EXPIRED, POLICY_CREATED
    }
  }
}

Open Flow in BPMN Sketch Miner

The Context Mapper IDEs (VS Code extension as well as Eclipse plugin) allow you to open a flow in BPMN Sketch Miner with two (or max. three) clicks. The following example illustrates this in VS Code (Eclipse works the same way).

Once you modelled your flow in CML, the editor will show a message and a light bulb on the line with the flow name:

Just click on the light bulb and then “Open flow in BPMN Sketch Miner”:

In VS Code you have to click “Open” one more time to finally open BPMN Sketch Miner in the browser:

And, voilà… a visualization of your CML flow powered by BPMN Sketch Miner:

Generate BPMN Sketch Miner DSL File

Instead of directly opening the BPMN Sketch Miner tool, you can also generate the Sketch Miner DSL into text files. This can be done by calling “Generate Sketch Miner Diagrams” in the context menu of the Context Mapper editor:

In this case Context Mapper generates the Sketch Miner DSL into a text file in the src-gen folder:

To visualize the flow you can then open https://www.bpmn-sketch-miner.ai/ and copy the generated text manually.