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BPMN/Process Engine - Future Enhancements

Version: 1.0
Date: February 9, 2026
Status: Planning

Overview

This document outlines planned future enhancements for ThemisDB's BPMN/process engine and wire protocol. These improvements aim to enhance performance, accuracy, and integration capabilities.

Planned Enhancements

1. Migrate Wire Protocol from JSON to Binary Protobuf Serialization

Current State:
The wire protocol currently uses JSON for message serialization.

Planned Enhancement:
Migrate to binary Protocol Buffers (protobuf) for improved performance and efficiency.

Benefits:

  • Performance: Binary serialization is significantly faster than JSON parsing
  • Size: Smaller message payloads reduce network overhead
  • Type Safety: Strong typing and schema validation at compile time
  • Backward Compatibility: Protobuf supports schema evolution

References:

2. Add Individual Node Visit Timestamp Tracking

Current State:
The process history events currently use token creation time for all history events, which doesn't accurately reflect when each individual node was visited during execution.

Planned Enhancement:
Implement individual node visit timestamp tracking to capture the actual time each process node is visited during execution.

Benefits:

  • Accurate Metrics: Precise timing information for each process step
  • Better Analytics: Improved bottleneck detection and performance analysis
  • Detailed Audit Trail: Complete temporal tracking of process execution
  • SLA Monitoring: Accurate measurement of time spent at each process node

Implementation Notes:

  • Add visited_at timestamp field to process history events
  • Update token advancement logic to record timestamp for each node visit
  • Extend process mining queries to leverage individual node timestamps

Current Code Location:

  • src/index/process_graph.cpp - Token creation and advancement logic
  • include/index/process_graph.h - ProcessToken (created_at_ms, visited_nodes) and ProcessGraphManager::getNodeHistory APIs

3. ProcessGraphManager Integration Initialization

Current State:
ProcessGraphManager integration assumes it is already initialized with process definitions before use.

Planned Enhancement:
Implement explicit initialization checks and provide clear initialization patterns for ProcessGraphManager integration.

Benefits:

  • Robustness: Prevent runtime errors from uninitialized state
  • Clear API: Explicit initialization contracts for integrators
  • Better Error Messages: Clear feedback when process definitions are missing
  • Developer Experience: Easier integration and debugging

Implementation Considerations:

  • Add isInitialized() method to ProcessGraphManager
  • Provide validateProcessDefinitions() helper method
  • Update documentation with initialization best practices
  • Add initialization state checks before execution operations

Current Code Location:

  • include/index/process_graph.h - ProcessGraphManager class definition
  • src/index/process_graph.cpp - ProcessGraphManager implementation

Related Documentation

Timeline

These enhancements are planned for future releases. Implementation priority and timeline will be determined based on project roadmap and resource availability.

Last Updated: April 2026
Status: Planning