proposal: custom-element as Rules engine

[sashafirsov]

Expose custom-element with actionable components as Rules Engine to be run in the context of browser and on back-end.

MVP

Rule engines are used in applications to define some of the business logic declaratively in user-friendly manner.

In the web applications it is often used to guide the user across multiple microapplications. For example, drive the user UI for the 1st time login via legal compliance, basic user preferences, and the setup for chosen services. The Rules Engine would trigger each sub-flow based on the user account properties.

Goal

Expose the custom-element as the rules engine for the most popular scenarios. Demo the showcase as for browser-driven session as for back-end web service exposed to be consumed by web apps and other web services.

In technical terms, the goal is to provide the state change management framework which

• loads the default/initial/last state either from inline serialized or remote data
• loads the updated/runtime state
• on each state node chage trigger the rule-driven action component with preserving the updated(by trigger) state as "current"

The Rules Engine comprise:

• declarative conventions based on custom-element
• web app and web service SDK
• UI designer. DnD graph editor.
• runtime state monitor UI in web and devtools for single "process"
• commercial dashboard for ^^ for multiple "process" correlation and analytics.
• commercial LM-driven designer and analytics board

references

• list of OSS Rule Engines
• Java Rule Engine API (JSR 94)

[sashafirsov]

Chllenges

• the rules engine meant to be driven in runtime-modified config, better via user-friendly UI( diagram, etc. ). While the custom-element payload is available via loading in runtime via src attribute, the additional security precautions need to be in place as in any web service APIs. Should custom-element has to extend the fetch-element request properties?

Parts of rules engine SDK

• Visual editor
• CRUD web servive
• Browser Runtime. Hopefully fit into usual custom-element semantics and syntax.
• Backend runtime.