Welcome to Stateway
Stateway is a distributed BPMN 2.0 process engine delivered as a Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS). Create, version, instantiate, and monitor business processes from BPMN, DMM, JSON, or YAML definitions — all through a REST API designed for both human developers and AI agents.
What is Stateway?
Stateway is a complete process automation platform that:
- Executes BPMN 2.0 processes — service tasks, human tasks, gateways, timers, and events
- Evaluates decision models (DMM) — DMN-style decision tables with multiple hit policies
- Supports multiple formats — BPMN XML, JSON, and YAML process definitions
- Provides a REST API — every operation is available via HTTP endpoints
- Is multitenant by default — tenant isolation via API keys, no extra configuration needed
- Is AI-native — designed for consumption by AI agents and LLM tool calls
Why Stateway?
The process automation market has critical gaps that Stateway fills — from ad-hoc state management to complex orchestration.
Your backend should not lose state
Every stateful feature — KYC, approvals, dunning — becomes fragile, inconsistent ad-hoc code. Stateway centralizes everything into a single API with native persistence and auditability.
Business rules hidden in code
When only developers understand the flow, the business team becomes dependent. Stateway transforms rules into visual diagrams (BPMN/DMN) that everyone understands.
Orchestration should not be complex
Temporal and other workflow engines require heavy SDKs. Camunda requires Java. Stateway orchestrates complex workflows with simple HTTP calls, timers, and events.
Niche tools break at scale
Use n8n for quick SaaS automations. Use Stateway when the process needs state, human approvals, survival across restarts, and auditability.
Key Concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Process Definition | A versioned blueprint of a business process (BPMN, JSON, or YAML) |
| Process Instance | A running execution of a process definition |
| Execution Token | A pointer that moves through the process graph |
| Human Task | A user task that requires manual completion |
| Service Task | An automated task that calls an external HTTP service |
| Decision Model (DMM) | A decision table evaluated by the engine |
| Webhook | An outbound HTTP notification triggered by process events |
| Timer | A scheduled job (duration, date, or recurring cycle) |
Quick Links
- Quickstart — Execute your first process in 5 minutes
- Authentication — API keys and tenant management
- Core Concepts — Understand definitions, instances, and tokens
- API Reference — Full endpoint documentation
- Guides — In-depth tutorials for each feature
Base URL
All API requests use the following base URL:
https://api.stateway.io/v1
Authentication
Every request requires an API key in the X-API-Key header:
curl -H "X-API-Key: sw_live_your_key_here" \
https://api.stateway.io/v1/definitions
The API key automatically resolves the tenant — you never need to pass tenant_id explicitly.