Operations and → Management Automated workflows

Automated workflows

1) Why do you need it

Automated workflows reduce manual operations, speed up "idea-to-money time" and reduce the risk of mistakes. In iGaming/fintech, it is critical for deposits/withdrawals, KYC/AML, bonus/jackpot management, content updates, incident-reactions, and back-office tasks.

• Robust, transparently observed processes from trigger to outcome.
• Minimum manual steps predictable by process SLOs.
• Error control: retrays, compensatory actions, clear escalations.
• Scaling by events and load without storms and duplicates.

2) Basic terminology

Workflow (WF): a chain of steps (tasks) to achieve a business result.
Orchestration: The central coordinator manages the steps and their order.

Choreography: steps react to events, there is no "central brain."

Compensation: reverse actions in partial failure (sagas).
HITL (Human-in-the-loop): controlled "manual" solutions within WF.
SLO of the process: target time of completion/success of a specific WF (for example, "95% of deposits ≤ 3 seconds").

3) Where to apply (examples)

Payment flow: deposits, anti-fraud, posting in accounting, notifications.
KYC/AML: collection of documents, checks by providers, escalation to compliance.
Content/limit management: publishing games, quotas, geo-rules.
Bonuses/jackpots: accruals, deductions, calculation of conditions, payments.
Incidents: auto-diagnostics, abbreviated checklists, communications.
Data/ETL: report uploads, reconciliation, archiving.

4) Orchestration vs Choreography

Orchestration is suitable when: complex branch logic, strict SLOs, explicit deadlines/timeouts, a visual "process map" is needed by business.
Choreography - when: high event, weak connectivity, many independent consumers of one event.

Hybrid: Long-lived sagas are controlled by an orchestrator, and local reactions are performed through events.

5) Architectural principles

Idempotency: each step must be safely repeated (idempotency-key, dedup by message-ID).
Explicit timeouts and retreats: backoff + jitter, try limits, retreats for safe mistakes only.
Compensations (sagas): Chain rollbacks on partial failure.
Isolation of steps: bulkhead (individual pools/limits on external downstreams).
Contracts: OpenAPI/AsyncAPI for all external calls, CDC tests.
WF versioning: changing the schema of input/output data without "mass" drops of old instances.

6) Event and trigger model

• domain event ('deposit. requested`),
• schedule (cron),
• manual start (operator/support),
• signal from alert (incident-auto-workflow).
• Context: correlation 'trace _ id', 'workflow _ instance _ id', user/region, phicheflag version.
• Cheap input filters: early validation and cut-off of takes.

7) Step design (tasks)

Each step is described: entry, exit, SLO, timeout, attempts, retray conditions, compensation, rights/secrets.

task: call_psp input: { user_id, amount, currency, idempotency_key }
timeout: 200ms retries:
max: 2 on: [5xx, connect_error]
backoff: exponential jitter: true compensation: reverse_authorization secrets: [PSP_TOKEN]
sla: p99 <= 300ms

8) Compensation and sagas

Local transaction + event "save intent → publish event."

Compensation: cancellation of authorization, return of bonus, balance recalculation, ticket closure.
Compensation idempotence: repeated cancellation should not break invariants.

9) Security and secrets

KMS/Secrets Manager: token storage, rotation, role access.
Least privileges: the WF engine is given exactly the right scopes.
Webhook/Kolbek signature: HMAC/JWS, timestamp check.
Data policies: PII masking in logs/traces, encryption.

10) Observability and SLO

Process metrics: 'workflow _ started/completed', 'success _ rate', 'aborted', 'mean/p95/p99 duration', hanging instances, 'dead letter'.
Step metrics: 'task _ latency', 'error _ rate', 'retry _ count', 'open _ circuit', 'cost _ per _ 1k _ calls'.
Traces: span for each step, tags' workflow. name`, `step`, `attempt`.

SLO: for example, "95% of deposits ≤ 3 seconds, 99% ≤ 5 seconds; abort ≤ 0. 3 %/day."

Dashboards: thermal step map, bottlenecks, dependency maps.

11) Human-in-circuit (HITL)

Criteria: controversial cases (risk/AML), manual confirmation of large payments.
Deadlines: timeout waiting for a decision, reminders/escalation.
Audit: who/when/what decided, justification, bundle with a ticket.

12) Change Management and Releases

Workflow versions: 'v1' and 'v2' in parallel; instance migration is not possible - terminate old instances naturally, new traffic to 'v2'.
Canary traffic: 1% → 10% → 100%, comparison of metrics' success/p95/abort '.
Ficheflags: A quick rollback to a previous step/branch implementation.
CDC/contracts: Gate in CI to keep step changes from breaking consumers/providers.

13) Testing

Unit steps: positive/negative + idempotency.
Contract tests: against moka/stage provider.
WF simulations: happy-path + timeouts, 4xx/5xx, "slow provider," loss of events, partial errors.
Game-days: injection of glitches (PSP/KYC drop, queue lag, closed breaker).
Replay: Replay historical events to validate migrations.

14) Incidents and auto-reactions

Incident auto-workflow: collecting metrics, checking downstreams, notifications, preparing workaround (switching provider, degradation).
Runbook steps: how to "untangle" hung instances when manual abort/force-complete is allowed.

15) Cost management

Quotas and "soft-cap": limits on expensive steps/providers.
Cache/dedup: do not make repeated external calls unnecessarily.
Reports: 'cost _ per _ 1k _ workflows', "cost of success" by WF type.

16) Mini-template workflow (pseudo-YAML)

workflow: deposit_v1 trigger:
event: deposit. requested filters: [amount > 0, currency in [USD,EUR,TRY]]
sla:
p95_ms: 3000 abort_rate_daily: 0. 3%
steps:
- name: reserve_funds timeout_ms: 150 retries: {max: 2, on: [5xx, connect_error], backoff: exponential, jitter: true}
compensation: release_reserve
- name: call_psp timeout_ms: 200 retries: {max: 2, on: [5xx, connect_error]}
circuit_breaker: {error_rate: 0. 05, window_s: 10, open_s: 30}
- name: post_ledger type: async topic: ledger. post
- name: notify_user channel: push hitl:
when: amount > 10000 or risk_score > 0. 8 timeout_m: 30 escalate_to: "compliance@oncall"
observability:
emit_metrics: true trace: true security:
secrets: [PSP_TOKEN, PUSH_API_KEY]

17) Retray and timeout policies (recommendations)

Step timeout = 70-80% of its latency budget.
Retrai ≤ 2-3, only for idempotent operations and network failures.
Jitter is mandatory; Ban retreats from bottleneck timeouts without a follbeck.
Compensation - as separate steps, also idempotent.

18) Dashboards (minimum)

WF Overview: launches/success/abort, p95/p99 duration, hangs/grandfathers.
Step Drilldown: Top slow/mistake steps, retreats, open breakers.
Provider Panel: outgoing p95/error-rate/quotas/cost.
HITL Board: "pending decision," timeline, compliance SLAs.

19) Implementation checklist

• Key WF map and owners (on-call, chat, repo).
• Description of steps: in/out, SLO, timeouts, retrays, compensations, secrets.
• OpenAPI/AsyncAPI + CDC contracts.
• Idempotence/deadup at the entrance and at the steps.
• Dashboards, traces, alerts (SLO process and steps).
• Canary + phicheflags for WF releases.
• Runbook: How to "treat" hung/partially executed WFs.
• Degradation plan: alternative providers, switching off "heavy" branches.
• Secret/access/audit policies.
• Game-days/xaoc-scenarios once a sprint.

20) Examples of alerts (ideas)

ALERT WorkflowSLOBreached
IF workflow_p95_duration_ms{name="deposit_v1"} > 3000 FOR 15m
LABELS {severity="critical", team="payments"}

ALERT WorkflowAbortRateHigh
IF rate(workflow_aborted_total{name="deposit_v1"}[30m]) > 0. 005
LABELS {severity="warning", team="payments"}

ALERT StepRetryStorm
IF step_retry_count{name="call_psp"} > 2 baseline_1w FOR 10m
LABELS {severity="warning", team="integrations"}

ALERT StuckInstances
IF workflow_in_progress_age_p95_m{name="kyc_v2"} > 60
LABELS {severity="warning", team="risk"}

21) Anti-patterns

"Large monolithic WF" with 100 + steps and rigid connectivity - breaks difficult and noisy.
Retrays for non-idempotent transactions (double charges/charges).

Timeouts "longer than life" of the user's request → hangmen and "zombies."

Lack of compensation → manual fixes and long post-mortems.
No WF versioning → releases break old instances.
Secrets inside configs/variables without rotation and audit.

22) Workflow Quality KPI

Success rate and Abort rate by WF type.
p95/p99 duration of steps and process.
MTTD/MTTR on process incidents.
Retry storm count/month (target → 0).

Cost per 1k WF and "cost of success."

Share of automation:% of cases without HITL.

23) Fast start (defaults)

Start with 3-5 critical WF (deposit, withdrawal, KYC).
Orchestrate long-lived sagas; local reactions - events.
Step timeout ≤ 80% of the budget; retrai ≤ 2 with backoff + jitter.
Compensations are determined in writing and tested.
Turn on the canary for 5-10% of traffic with a comparison dashboard.
Each WF has an owner, a runbook and SLO alerts.

24) FAQ

Q: What to choose: orchestrator or events?
A: If you need a visual map, deadlines and long sagas are an orchestrator. If simple reactions to events and a lot of consumers prevail, choreography. Often the best option is a hybrid.

Q: How do you avoid duplicates?
A: Idempotency-key at WF input, dedup by 'message _ id' and storage of "seen-events." Steps are idempotent.

Q: Does it need a man-in-the-circuit?
A: Yes, for controversial/expensive cases. But measure and reduce HITL share through better automation and rules.