Bloodhound – flows

In the default configuration module, flows are files located in the etc/flows directory.

Anatomy of a flow

A flow is a number of steps (actors) that will be performed between the inbound request and the response to the outbound request. Some of which are meant to work in a sequence, and some in parallel.

In order to use an actor, its implementation needs to be defined among the implementers. In the default configuration mode, this happens in the implementers.yml file.

There are 3 essential actors a flow cannot do without and are required in every flow:

• A request-parsing step, explicitly named proxy/request;
• An upstream step, performing the actual call to the upstream;
• A send-back step, returning the retrieved content to the user;

With the exception of proxy/request, naming is free, as well as implementations, but the structure needs to follow the <type>/<name> pattern.

Each step has a set of fixed instructions and extra fields.

• The key is a combination of the type and the ID, declared in the implementers.yml file
• next determines what’s the next actor in the flow
• sidecars (not always applicable) are the IDs of actors that will receive a copy of the message in parallel but do not alter the main message. Mind that sidecars can have different behaviors based on where they’re placed in the flow. For example, access loggers log inbound calls when placed before the SendBack, and outbound calls when placed after the SendBack
• config other implementation-specific configuration keys

If a certain actor is referenced either as next or in sidecars, it must to be present in the flow.

Example:

proxy/request:
  next: filter/header_filter
  sidecars:
    - sidecar/access_logger

filter/header_filter:
  next: proxy/upstream_http
  sidecars:
    - sidecar/access_logger
  config:
    accept:
      - value: "#msg.request().getHeader('key')=='ABC123'"
        evaluated: true
      - value: "#msg.request().getHeader('accept')=='application/json'"
        evaluated: true
    reject:
      - value: "#msg.request().method()!='GET'"
        evaluated: true

proxy/upstream_http:
  next: proxy/send_back

proxy/send_back:
  sidecars:
    - sidecar/access_logger

sidecar/access_logger:
  config: {}