Pipelines

Performing sequential tasks with Pipelines in Umbraco Commerce.

Pipelines allow a series of tasks to be performed in a set sequence. This is done with the input of a given task being the output of the preceding task. It allows a result to be built up as an input is passed through these individual tasks, instead of being calculated in one go.

The Pipelines feature provides an approach to insert additional steps into the process as pipeline tasks can be added or removed from the pipeline sequence.

Where Pipelines is used, it allows an additional point at which developers can interject some custom logic, tweaking how Umbraco Commerce works.

Consider these use-case examples:

• An additional task could be injected into the CalculateOrderPipeline to alter how an Order is calculated.

• A task could be injected into the EmailSendPipeline to add a dynamic attachment to an email.

Example Pipeline task

An example of a Pipeline task would look something like this:

public class AddCustomAttachmentTask : PipelineTaskWithTypedArgsBase<EmailSendPipelineArgs, EmailContext>
{
    public override PipelineResult<EmailContext> Execute(EmailSendPipelineArgs args)
    {
        var attachment = new Attachment(File.OpenRead("path\to\license.lic"), "license.lic");

        args.EmailContext.MailMessage.Attachments.Add(attachment);

        return Ok(args.EmailContext);
    }
}

All Pipeline tasks inherit from a base class PipelineTaskWithTypedArgsBase<TPipelineArgs, TModel>. TPipelineArgs is the type of arguments supported by the pipeline and TModel is the pipeline's return model Type. You then need to implement an Execute method that accepts an instance of the argument's type as input and expects a PipelineResult<TModel> as its output. Inside this method, you can perform your custom logic as required. To complete the pipeline task, you can call Ok(TModel) if the task was successful. This will pass in the updated TModel instance to returnæ. Otherwise, you can call Fail() to fail the whole pipeline.

All pipelines occur within a Unit of Work. In case a Pipeline task fails, the whole pipeline will fail and no changes will persist.

Registering a Pipeline task

Pipeline tasks are registered via the IUmbracoCommerceBuilder interface using the appropriate With{PipelineName}Pipeline() builder extension method. This is done to identify the pipeline you want to extend. You can then call the Add<TTask>() method to add your task to the end of that pipeline.

public static class UmbracoCommerceUmbracoBuilderExtensions
{
    public static IUmbracoCommerceBuilder AddMyPipelineTasks(IUmbracoCommerceBuilder builder)
    {
        // Add our custom pipeline tasks
        builder.WithSendEmailPipeline()
            .Add<LogEmailSentTask>();

        // Return the builder to continue the chain
        return builder;
    }
}

You can also control the order of when Pipeline tasks run, before or after another task, by appending them via the InsertBefore<TTask>() or InsertAfter<TTask>() methods respectively.

public static class UmbracoCommerceUmbracoBuilderExtensions
{
    public static IUmbracoCommerceBuilder AddMyPipelineTasks(IUmbracoCommerceBuilder builder)
    {
        // Register AddCustomAttachmentTask to execute before the RaiseSendingEventTask
        builder.WithSendEmailPipeline()
            .InsertBefore<RaiseSendingEventTask, AddCustomAttachmentTask>();

        // Register LogEmailSentTask to execute after the RaiseSendingEventTask
        builder.WithSendEmailPipeline()
            .InsertAfter<RaiseSendingEventTask, LogEmailSentTask>();

        // Return the builder to continue the chain
        return builder;
    }
}