AWS Amazon Simple Workflow Service

Name: Amazon Simple Workflow Service API
Brand: Amazon Simple Workflow Service
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentDeveloper ToolsCi CdapiKey37 Endpoints

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the Amazon Simple Workflow Service to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Amazon Simple Workflow Service, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Amazon Simple Workflow Service API.

Start, signal, terminate, and request cancellation of workflow executions

Poll for decision tasks via PollForDecisionTask and respond with decisions

GET STARTED

Start building with Amazon Simple Workflow Service API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

For Agents

Coordinate long-running, multi-step workflows by registering domains and workflow types, polling for activity and decision tasks, and signalling running executions.

Use for: Register a new SWF domain for a workflow application, Start a workflow execution with a specific input payload, Poll for the next decision task in a workflow domain, Record an activity task heartbeat to extend its timeout

Not supported: Does not handle event-driven Lambda orchestration, message queueing, or visual state machines - use for long-running, decider-based workflow coordination only.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Amazon Simple Workflow Service API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Long-Running Order Fulfilment Workflows

Model an e-commerce order as an SWF workflow execution that spans payment authorisation, inventory reservation, shipping label generation, and customer notification - each implemented as an activity task picked up by a worker. SWF guarantees at-most-once task delivery and retains execution history for replay, making it well suited to processes that run for hours or days and need a precise audit trail.

Call StartWorkflowExecution in domain 'orders', workflowType OrderFulfilment v1, workflowId order-2026-06-09-001, taskList orders-decider, with input containing the order JSON.

Human-in-the-Loop Approval Pipelines

Run approval workflows that pause until a human signals a decision. The decider issues a ScheduleActivityTask for the human reviewer's queue; when the reviewer responds, an external system calls SignalWorkflowExecution to deliver the decision. SWF holds execution state for up to a year, so workflows can wait days for review without consuming compute.

Call SignalWorkflowExecution with domain 'approvals', workflowId loan-app-2026-06-09-77, signalName ReviewerDecision, and input '{"decision":"approved","reviewer":"jane.doe"}'.

Workflow Capacity and Health Monitoring

Operate SWF at scale by polling CountOpenWorkflowExecutions and CountClosedWorkflowExecutions per domain and workflow type. Combine with ListOpenWorkflowExecutions to find stuck runs and GetWorkflowExecutionHistory to drill into the event log when an execution stalls. This is the standard observability pattern for SWF before resorting to custom CloudWatch metrics.

Call CountOpenWorkflowExecutions for domain 'orders' with executionFilter on workflowId prefix 'order-', and return the open count.

Agent-Orchestrated Workflow Control via Jentic

Let an AI agent kick off, signal, and cancel SWF executions through Jentic without holding AWS keys. The agent submits an intent like 'start a fulfilment workflow for order 1234'; Jentic loads StartWorkflowExecution, validates the input, and executes it. Subsequent agent actions (signal, cancel) flow through the same vaulted credentials, keeping the agent context free of secrets.

Through Jentic, search for 'start an aws swf workflow execution', load StartWorkflowExecution, and execute with domain, workflowId, workflowType, and input.

Key Endpoints

37 endpoints — jentic publishes the only available openapi specification for amazon simple workflow service, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.StartWorkflowExecution

Start a workflow execution

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.PollForDecisionTask

Poll for the next decision task

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.PollForActivityTask

Poll for the next activity task

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.SignalWorkflowExecution

Signal a running workflow

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.GetWorkflowExecutionHistory

Read full execution history

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.RecordActivityTaskHeartbeat

Heartbeat a long-running activity

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.StartWorkflowExecution

Start a workflow execution

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.PollForDecisionTask

Poll for the next decision task

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.PollForActivityTask

Poll for the next activity task

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.SignalWorkflowExecution

Signal a running workflow

POST

/#X-Amz-Target=SimpleWorkflowService.GetWorkflowExecutionHistory

Read full execution history

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Your AWS access keys are stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and used to sign each SWF request with SigV4 at execution time. They never enter the agent's prompt, logs, or context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'start an SWF workflow execution' or 'poll for a decision task', and Jentic returns the matching Simple Workflow Service operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

Time to first call

FAQs

Specific to using Amazon Simple Workflow Service API through Jentic.

Why is there no official OpenAPI spec for Amazon Simple Workflow Service?

AWS does not publish an OpenAPI specification for Amazon Simple Workflow Service; it ships Smithy models and language-specific SDKs instead. Jentic generates and maintains this OpenAPI spec so that AI agents and developers can call Amazon Simple Workflow Service via structured tooling. It is validated against the live API and kept up to date. Get started with Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer.

What authentication does Amazon Simple Workflow Service use?

SWF uses AWS SigV4 in the Authorization header with X-Amz-Target identifying the action (e.g. SimpleWorkflowService.StartWorkflowExecution). Through Jentic, your AWS access keys are stored encrypted in the vault and Jentic computes the SigV4 signature for each request.

Can I orchestrate human-in-the-loop steps with SWF?

Yes. Pause an execution by scheduling a long-timeout activity for a human-task queue, or have the decider stop scheduling new tasks until an external SignalWorkflowExecution call delivers the human decision. SWF retains execution state for up to a year.

What are the rate limits for Amazon SWF?

Default per-account limits include 100 starts per second per workflow type, 200 polls per second per task list, and a 1MB execution input/output size cap. Heartbeats and decisions have separate per-task-list quotas. Most limits are increasable via AWS Support.

How do I start an SWF workflow execution through Jentic?

Search Jentic with 'start an aws swf workflow execution', load the StartWorkflowExecution schema, and execute with domain, workflowId, workflowType (name + version), taskList, and an input string. Jentic returns the runId of the new execution.

Should I use SWF or AWS Step Functions for new workflows?

For new projects AWS recommends Step Functions, which offers a managed state machine and visual editor. Use SWF when you have an existing decider/activity-worker codebase, need finer control over task dispatch, or rely on its long execution retention.

Can I cancel a running workflow execution?

Yes. RequestCancelWorkflowExecution sends a cancellation request that the decider can act on; TerminateWorkflowExecution forces an immediate termination without giving the decider a chance to clean up.

Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Amazon Simple Workflow Service API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, you decide which SWF operations your agent may call, and your own rules are what grant or withhold access. SWF routes every action through a single endpoint by the X-Amz-Target header rather than by resource paths, so you scope the agent to just the operations it needs, such as StartWorkflowExecution, SignalWorkflowExecution, and GetWorkflowExecutionHistory. Destructive actions like RequestCancelWorkflowExecution or TerminateWorkflowExecution stay out of reach unless you explicitly add them.

AWS Amazon Simple Workflow Service

Connect the Amazon Simple Workflow Service to your agent

Capabilities

Start building with Amazon Simple Workflow Service API

Use Cases

Key Endpoints

Why Jentic?

Related APIs

FAQs