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Flowon Language (FoL)

All Flowon artifacts are expressed in Flowon Language (FoL)—a declarative, JSON-based domain-specific language designed to capture business requirements in an executable format.

Design Principles​

PrincipleDescription
DeclarativeDescribe what, not how
IntuitiveNatural to business concepts
PortableJSON format, version-controllable
ExecutableDirectly runnable without compilation
ExpressiveRich enough for complex problems
ExtensibleNew constructs can be added

Language Coverage​

FoL can express:

  • Calculations: Formulas, expressions, transformations
  • Decisions: Rules, conditions, branching logic
  • Validations: Constraints, checks, error messages
  • Processes: Workflows, stages, transitions
  • Integrations: API calls, data mappings
  • Events: Triggers, handlers, subscriptions

Toward Turing Completeness​

Our objective is to make FoL Turing complete—capable of expressing any computation. Current capabilities include:

  • ✅ Variables and assignments
  • ✅ Conditional logic (if/then/else)
  • ✅ Loops and iterations
  • ✅ Functions and composition
  • ✅ Recursion (via flows)
  • ✅ State management

Examples​

Formula​

{
  "name": "CalculateOrderTotal",
  "type": "Formula",
  "inputs": [
    { "name": "Subtotal", "type": "Decimal" },
    { "name": "TaxRate", "type": "Decimal" },
    { "name": "DiscountAmount", "type": "Decimal" }
  ],
  "output": { "type": "Decimal" },
  "expression": "Subtract(Add(Subtotal, Multiply(Subtotal, TaxRate)), DiscountAmount)"
}

Decision Table​

{
  "name": "DiscountRates",
  "type": "DecisionTable",
  "hitPolicy": "First",
  "conditions": [
    { "name": "Quantity", "type": "Integer" },
    { "name": "CustomerTier", "type": "String" }
  ],
  "actions": [
    { "name": "DiscountPercent", "type": "Decimal" }
  ],
  "rules": [
    { "conditions": [">= 100", "Gold"], "actions": ["0.20"] },
    { "conditions": [">= 100", "Silver"], "actions": ["0.15"] },
    { "conditions": [">= 50", "Gold"], "actions": ["0.10"] },
    { "conditions": ["*", "*"], "actions": ["0.00"] }
  ]
}

Validation​

{
  "name": "ValidateEmail",
  "type": "Validation",
  "condition": "MatchPattern(Email, '^[a-z]+@[a-z]+\\.[a-z]+$')",
  "errorMessage": "Invalid email format",
  "severity": "Error"
}

Logic Flow​

{
  "name": "ProcessOrder",
  "type": "LogicFlow",
  "steps": [
    {
      "name": "ValidateOrder",
      "type": "RunValidationSet",
      "validationSet": "OrderValidations"
    },
    {
      "name": "CalculateTotal",
      "type": "RunLogicBlock",
      "logicBlock": "CalculateOrderTotal",
      "outputVariable": "Total"
    },
    {
      "name": "CheckApproval",
      "type": "Condition",
      "condition": "IsGreaterThan(Total, 10000)",
      "trueSteps": ["RequireApproval"],
      "falseSteps": ["AutoApprove"]
    }
  ]
}

Requirements-as-Code in Action​

Traditional Approach

"The system shall calculate the order total as the sum of line item amounts plus shipping minus any discount"

↓ Developer interprets...
↓ Developer writes C#...
↓ Tester writes tests...
↓ Documentation goes outdated...
Flowon Approach

Formula: OrderTotal


Sum(LineItems.Amount)

  • ShippingCost
  • DiscountAmount

← THIS IS THE REQUIREMENT AND THE IMPLEMENTATION