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Amazon Step Functions invoke action reference

An Amazon CodePipeline action that does the following:

The CodePipeline action for Step Functions is not available in the China (Beijing) and China (Ningxia) Regions. To reference other available actions, see Product and service integrations with CodePipeline.

Action type

Configuration parameters

Input artifacts

Output artifacts

Output variables

This action produces output variables that can be referenced by the action configuration of a downstream action in the pipeline.

For more information, see Variables reference.

Example action configuration

Example for default input

YAML

Name: ActionName
ActionTypeId:
  Category: Invoke
  Owner: AWS
  Version: 1
  Provider: StepFunctions
OutputArtifacts:
  - Name: myOutputArtifact
Configuration:
  StateMachineArn: arn:aws:states:us-east-1:111122223333:stateMachine:HelloWorld-StateMachine
  ExecutionNamePrefix: my-prefix

JSON

{
    "Name": "ActionName",
    "ActionTypeId": {
        "Category": "Invoke",
        "Owner": "AWS",
        "Version": 1,
        "Provider": "StepFunctions"
    },
    "OutputArtifacts": [
        {
            "Name": "myOutputArtifact"
        }
    ],
    "Configuration": {
        "StateMachineArn": "arn:aws:states:us-east-1:111122223333:stateMachine:HelloWorld-StateMachine",
        "ExecutionNamePrefix": "my-prefix"
    }
}

Example for literal input

YAML

Name: ActionName
ActionTypeId:
  Category: Invoke
  Owner: AWS
  Version: 1
  Provider: StepFunctions
OutputArtifacts:
  - Name: myOutputArtifact
Configuration:
  StateMachineArn: arn:aws:states:us-east-1:111122223333:stateMachine:HelloWorld-StateMachine
  ExecutionNamePrefix: my-prefix
  Input: '{"action": "test"}'

JSON

{
    "Name": "ActionName",
    "ActionTypeId": {
        "Category": "Invoke",
        "Owner": "AWS",
        "Version": 1,
        "Provider": "StepFunctions"
    },
    "OutputArtifacts": [
        {
            "Name": "myOutputArtifact"
        }
    ],
    "Configuration": {
        "StateMachineArn": "arn:aws:states:us-east-1:111122223333:stateMachine:HelloWorld-StateMachine",
        "ExecutionNamePrefix": "my-prefix",
        "Input": "{\"action\": \"test\"}"
    }
}

Example for input file

YAML

Name: ActionName
InputArtifacts:
  - Name: myInputArtifact
ActionTypeId:
  Category: Invoke
  Owner: AWS
  Version: 1
  Provider: StepFunctions
OutputArtifacts:
  - Name: myOutputArtifact
Configuration:
  StateMachineArn: 'arn:aws:states:us-east-1:111122223333:stateMachine:HelloWorld-StateMachine'
  ExecutionNamePrefix: my-prefix
  InputType: FilePath
  Input: assets/input.json

JSON

{
    "Name": "ActionName",
    "InputArtifacts": [
        {
            "Name": "myInputArtifact"
        }
    ],
    "ActionTypeId": {
        "Category": "Invoke",
        "Owner": "AWS",
        "Version": 1,
        "Provider": "StepFunctions"
    },
    "OutputArtifacts": [
        {
            "Name": "myOutputArtifact"
        }
    ],
    "Configuration": {
        "StateMachineArn": "arn:aws:states:us-east-1:111122223333:stateMachine:HelloWorld-StateMachine",
        "ExecutionNamePrefix": "my-prefix",
        "InputType": "FilePath",
        "Input": "assets/input.json"
    }
}

Behavior

During a release, CodePipeline executes the configured state machine using the input as specified in the action configuration.

When InputType is set to Literal, the content of the Input action configuration field is used as the input for the state machine. When literal input is not provided, the state machine execution uses an empty JSON object {}. For more information about running a state machine execution without input, see the Step Functions StartExecution API.

When InputType is set to FilePath, the action unzips the input artifact and uses the content of the file specified in the Input action configuration field as the input for the state machine. When FilePath is specified, the Input field is required and an input artifact must exist; otherwise, the action fails.

After a successful start execution, behavior will diverge for the two state machine types, standard and express.

Standard state machines

If the standard state machine execution was successfully started, CodePipeline polls the DescribeExecution API until the execution reaches a terminal status. If the execution completes successfully, the action succeeds; otherwise, it fails.

If an output artifact is configured, the artifact will contain the return value of the state machine. This is obtained from the output property of the Step Functions DescribeExecution API response after the state machine execution completes successfully. Note that there are output length constraints enforced on this API.

Error handling

Express state machines

If the express state machine execution was successfully started, the invoke action execution completes successfully.

Considerations for actions configured for express state machines:

Error handling

See also

The following related resources can help you as you work with this action.