Filestack workflow design

Filestack Workflows

Workflows are Filestack's primary asynchronous processing story — multi-step pipelines that run on every file upload (or on demand) and emit fs.workflow webhook events when complete.

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• Run a series of operations on each upload (resize → SFW check → store)
• Branch processing based on file type, MIME, intelligence result
• Use virus detection, video intelligence, or document workflows (these are workflow-only — not available as direct CDN tasks)
• Trigger an existing workflow from code

When to choose a Workflow vs direct tasks

Use direct CDN tasks (filestack_transform_url, filestack_transform_apply, filestack_analyze) when:

• The operation is synchronous and returns a transformed file or JSON
• One or two transforms in a chain
• The result is fetched on demand (CDN-cached)

Use a Workflow when:

• ≥3 steps with conditional branches
• Background processing — caller doesn't wait
• One of these workflow-only tasks is needed:
  • virus_detection
  • video_sfw, video_tagging (video intelligence)
  • phishing_detection
• Multiple outputs need to be stored to different locations
• Caller wants webhook-driven completion via fs.workflow event

Designing a Workflow

Workflows are designed in the Filestack Developer Portal (https://dev.filestack.com/ → Workflows). They cannot be designed via API — only invoked via API once created.

A workflow has:

• Tasks: nodes that perform an action (transform, intelligence, store, webhook, etc.)
• Conditions: branches based on the previous task's output (e.g. sfw == true)
• A trigger: either explicit (via filestack_run_workflow or picker storeTo.workflows), or implicit (on upload)

Walk the user through the Portal flow

1. Sign in at https://dev.filestack.com/
2. Open the target app → Workflows in left nav
3. Click Create Workflow
4. Drag tasks from the left panel onto the canvas. Tasks include:
   • Transformation: resize, crop, output, watermark, etc.
   • Intelligence: sfw, tags, caption, ocr, virus_detection, doc_detection, image_sentiment
   • Storage: store (S3/GCS/Azure/Rackspace)
   • Webhook: POST result to a customer URL
   • Conditional: branch on previous task output
5. Connect tasks with edges (right-handle → left-handle)
6. Save — the workflow gets a UUID
7. Copy the UUID into your application code or use it with filestack_run_workflow

Common workflow patterns

1. Moderation pipeline

Upload → sfw → (if sfw=true) → tags → store to public bucket
                          ↓
                       (if sfw=false) → webhook to alert team → store to quarantine bucket

2. Document processing

Upload (PDF/image) → doc_detection → (if detected) → ocr → store text alongside file
                                ↓
                              (else) → webhook "manual review needed"

3. Video upload + intelligence

Upload (video) → virus_detection → video_convert (preset: h264, hls) → video_tagging → store outputs to S3

4. Virus scan gate

Upload → virus_detection → (if clean) → store to user bucket
                       ↓
                     (if infected) → webhook "infected upload from user X" → discard

Invoking a Workflow from code

Once a workflow is created in the Portal, run it via filestack_run_workflow:

const result = await callTool('filestack_run_workflow', {
  handleOrUrl: 'abc123XYZ',
  workflowId: '67d273c3-249c-4192-b228-9c3e1d003963',
});
// result.result contains { jobid, status, ... }

For security-enabled apps, pre-generate a signed policy that includes BOTH convert AND runWorkflow in the call array:

const { policy, signature } = await callTool('filestack_generate_signed_url', {
  handle: 'abc123XYZ',
  call: ['convert', 'runWorkflow'],
  expiry: Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000) + 3600,
});

const result = await callTool('filestack_run_workflow', {
  handleOrUrl: 'abc123XYZ',
  workflowId: '67d273c3-249c-4192-b228-9c3e1d003963',
  options: { policy, signature },
});

Receiving Workflow completion (webhooks)

Configure a webhook in the Developer Portal subscribed to fs.workflow events. Use filestack_verify_webhook_signature in your receiver to authenticate. Payload shape:

{
  "id": 12345,
  "action": "fs.workflow",
  "timestamp": 1710000000,
  "text": {
    "workflow": "67d273c3-249c-4192-b228-9c3e1d003963",
    "job": "job-uuid",
    "status": "Finished",
    "sources": ["abc123XYZ"],
    "results": {
      "store_1": { "url": "...", "handle": "..." },
      "store_2": { "url": "...", "handle": "..." }
    }
  }
}

The results object is keyed by the task name as set in the workflow designer (rename your store tasks to something meaningful like store_public / store_quarantine).

Triggering on upload

To run a workflow on every upload, pass the workflow ID(s) to the picker's storeTo.workflows option:

const picker = client.picker({
  storeTo: {
    location: 's3',
    workflows: ['67d273c3-249c-4192-b228-9c3e1d003963'],
  },
});

This emits a workflow job for each completed upload — fire-and-forget.

Troubleshooting

• Workflow returns 403: policy is missing runWorkflow AND/OR convert calls. Both are required.
• Workflow stuck in pending: check the workflow logs in the Developer Portal → Workflows → click the job. Most often a downstream task (storage, webhook) is misconfigured.
• Webhook never fires: confirm the webhook is subscribed to fs.workflow (not fp.upload). The two are separate event types.
• Conditional branch never taken: condition comparisons are strict (e.g. sfw == true vs sfw == "true"); check the upstream task's actual output type in the workflow logs.