A Detailed Look at Camunda BPMN Application Development

In this article, I take an in-depth look at using Camunda BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) to build a non-trivial internal tool for my workplace. Camunda BPMN process definitions are simultaneously a graphical and textual representation of an executable workflow. I find the technology very interesting as it works both a visual communication tool and as a low code rapid development system. It excels at long running operations and has a focus on reliability and observability. The supporting tooling that allows querying running processes both graphically and/or via REST APIs.

The tool I built here for evaluation purposes touches on many BPMN concepts and would serve as a useful introduction if you would like to learn more about a different way of producing cross service applications.

I have a hypothesis that writing a load of code is no longer the best path for developing internal tools. Generally, there are so many polish products out there now, that even if you spend a fortune, you won’t get very good results. It’s not about execution ability or resourcing. Basically a product company can refine feedback from many customers, and thus can figure out the right level of abstraction. This leads to a feedback driven development process that is strictly superior when compared to a single customer internal tool. Internal tools overfit their organization and then become resistant to the inevitable change.