News Search (Simplified)

Before/after comparison: how new CEL functions simplify workflow expressions. This is a manual workflow that fetches news, checks results, and returns a summary.

manual http before-after new-functions present step_ok step_data url_params truncate tpl join_present step_has_content

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What's Included

Field	Value
Name	News Search (Simplified)
Type	Workflow
Trigger	manual
Steps	2
Inputs	2

Full JSON

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{
  "description": "Before/after comparison: how new CEL functions simplify workflow expressions. This is a manual workflow that fetches news, checks results, and returns a summary.",
  "tags": [
    "manual",
    "http",
    "before-after",
    "new-functions",
    "present",
    "step_ok",
    "step_data",
    "url_params",
    "truncate",
    "tpl",
    "join_present",
    "step_has_content"
  ],
  "notes": {
    "before_after_comparisons": [
      {
        "pattern": "Presence check",
        "before": "size(trim(coalesce(query, \"\"))) > 0",
        "after": "present(query)"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "Step success check",
        "before": "get(step(0), \"executionContext.status\") == \"completed\" && (get(step(0), \"status\") == null || get(step(0), \"status\") == 200)",
        "after": "step_ok(0)"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "Step data access",
        "before": "get(step(0), \"data.articles\", [])",
        "after": "step_data(0, \"articles\", [])"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "URL construction",
        "before": "\"https://api.example.com/search?q=\" + encode_uri(query) + \"&maxrecords=\" + coalesce(max_records, \"50\") + \"&format=json\"",
        "after": "url_params(\"https://api.example.com/search\", {\"q\": query, \"maxrecords\": coalesce(max_records, \"50\"), \"format\": \"json\"})"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "Array slicing",
        "before": "size(results) >= 3 ? [results[0], results[1], results[2]] : results",
        "after": "slice(results, 0, 3)"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "Step error extraction",
        "before": "coalesce(get(step(0), \"executionContext.safeError.code\"), \"UNKNOWN\")",
        "after": "get(step_error(0), \"code\", \"UNKNOWN\")"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "String truncation",
        "before": "coalesce(get(article, \"title\"), \"\")[0:math_clamp(size(coalesce(get(article, \"title\"), \"\")), 0, 80)]",
        "after": "truncate(get(article, \"title\", \"\"), 80)"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "Template interpolation",
        "before": "\"*\" + get(article, \"title\", \"\") + \"*\\n\" + get(article, \"domain\", \"\") + \"\\n\" + get(article, \"url\", \"\")",
        "after": "tpl(\"*{title}*\\n{domain}\\n{url}\", article)"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "Conditional text assembly",
        "before": "(present(category) ? category + \" - \" : \"\") + title",
        "after": "join_present(\" - \", category, title)"
      },
      {
        "pattern": "Step success + data check",
        "before": "step_ok(0) && present(step_data(0, \"articles\"))",
        "after": "step_has_content(0, \"articles\")"
      }
    ]
  },
  "document": {
    "name": "News Search (Simplified)",
    "enabled": true,
    "log_level": "info",
    "trigger": {
      "type": "manual"
    },
    "workflowInput": [
      {
        "name": "query",
        "description": "Search query",
        "schema": {
          "type": "string",
          "required": true
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "max_records",
        "description": "Max results (default: 10)",
        "schema": {
          "type": "string",
          "required": false
        }
      }
    ],
    "steps": [
      {
        "condition": {
          "expr": "present(query)",
          "onFailure": "throw",
          "resultType": "any"
        },
        "action": {
          "actionType": "actions/network/http/request/send",
          "actions/network/http/request/send": {
            "method": "GET",
            "url": {
              "expr": "url_params(\"https://api.example.com/search\", {\"q\": query, \"maxrecords\": coalesce(max_records, \"10\"), \"format\": \"json\"})",
              "onFailure": "throw",
              "resultType": "any"
            },
            "headers": [],
            "returnBuffer": false,
            "cache": true
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "condition": {
          "expr": "step_has_content(0, \"articles\")",
          "onFailure": "throw",
          "resultType": "any"
        },
        "action": {
          "actionType": "actions/ai/llm/chat/generate",
          "actions/ai/llm/chat/generate": {
            "is_advanced": false,
            "text": {
              "expr": "'Summarize these articles:\\n' + json_stringify(slice(step_data(0, \"articles\", []), 0, 3))",
              "onFailure": "throw",
              "resultType": "any"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    ],
    "returnExpression": {
      "expr": "step_ok(1) ? step_data(1, \"choices.0.message.content\", \"\") : get(step_error(0), \"code\", \"UNKNOWN_ERROR\")"
    }
  }
}

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