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Agama overview#

Agama is a framework that consists of:

  • A DSL (domain-specific language) purposedly designed for writing web flows
  • A set of rules that drive the behavior of such flows when they are executed
  • The specification of a file format - known as .gama - useful for sharing Agama flows. Flows have the .flow file extension.

Here, a web flow is understood as a process composed by one or more stages, where at each stage an actor - normally a person - provides some kind of data or response by using a web browser or similar client. Throughout the process only a single actor is involved.

DSL#

About the Agama language is worth to mention that:

  • It helps depicting the structure of web flows in a natural way
  • It is closer to human language than general-purpose programming languages
  • It has a clean, concise, non-distracting syntax
  • It has limited computational power by design, forcing computations to occur in a more formal, general-purpose language like Java, C++, etc.

Intrinsic properties of the language include:

  • It follows the imperative paradigm mainly and assumes a traditional sequential execution. It only makes use of a few declarative elements
  • Flows can be treated as functions (reusable routines with well-defined inputs)
  • It provides dedicated contructs for common patterns in web flows like:
    • "show a page" and "retrieve the data user provided in that page"
    • "redirect a user to an external site" and later "retrieve the data provided at a callback URL"
  • It supports typical language elements like assignments, conditionals, loops, etc.

Find the complete Agama DSL reference here.

Behavioral rules of execution#

These are aspects that concrete implementations of the framework must adhere to. Rules may include for instance:

  • How and when a flow terminates
  • If and how errors are handled in a flow
  • How flows' assets, i.e. UI pages, images, stylesheets, etc., are organized or laid out
  • How delegation of business logic execution occur in a language other than Agama

A "concrete implementation" as referred above is known as an engine: a software component capable of running flows written in Agama DSL.

More information on execution rules can be found here.

.gama file format#

Check this page for more information.

Last update: 2023-06-07
Created: 2023-06-06