Entity support

[DenisBalan]

Any plans on roadmap to add entity support?

[PejmanNik]

It was always part of the plan, but I couldn’t figure it out in my initial implementation. I’ll spend some time on it again during the next week

[DenisBalan]

Pretty sure this would help

microsoft/durabletask-dotnet#515
microsoft/durabletask-dotnet#517

[PejmanNik]

Thank you, that would be helpful. But my main blocker is how to execute the entity.
Here’s what I understand so far:

1. Entity signals are just like normal orchestration calls but the orchestration name becomes "@{entity name}@{entity id}"
2. Entities go through the same pipeline as orchestrations, so OrchestrationMiddleware can detect them.
3. I can create the entity from DI via factory.TryCreateEntity, similar to orchestrations.

However, the rest is still unclear and feels hacky. I can locate the signal in TaskOrchestrationWorkItem.NewMessages where EventType is EventRaised, and I can call the entity using ExecuteOperationBatchAsync, but I couldn't figure out how to set the entity’s result and state.

I'll try to push my changes to a branch, but the final part for executing the entity properly is still missing 🙁

[PejmanNik]

created microsoft/durabletask-dotnet#540 to get some help

[PejmanNik]

Released with version 0.0.5