Calling a Child workflow from a Parent workflow fails due to child workflow not being published

[RobUrsem]

I've been trying to get this working for a few days now, but can't find a solution in the examples or the code.

I have a very similar setup to the MainWorkflow / SubroutineWorkflow from the ExecuteWorkflowsTests
example. I'm trying to execute the child workflow through the ExecuteWorkflow activity, but I keep getting the error: "No published version of workflow definition with ID found".

Looking at the ExecuteWorkflow and DispatchWorkflow code, the child workflow needs to be published for it to be found. Tracing through the example, it seems the SubroutineWorkflow might be published through the AddWorkflowsFrom call in the WorkflowServer.
I am using the TestApplicationBuilder and have a similar AddWorkflow call that registers the child workflow. Still I get the "no published version found" message.

I've tried to get the child workflow published at the start of the test by getting an IWorkflowDefinitionPublisher and calling PublishAsync with the DefinitionId of the child workflow. That call also fails with the message "Workflow definition not found".

I must be missing something here, but currently I'm spinning my wheels so some guidance would be helpful.

If this is not the right way to go, would I need to create a custom activity that runs the workflow, since executing a workflow through IWorkflowRunner::RunAsync seems to work.

[sfmskywalker]

Short answer: ExecuteWorkflow is looking for a published managed workflow definition, not just a registered runtime workflow type.

In the current code:

• ExecuteWorkflow.ExecuteWorkflowAsync calls IWorkflowDefinitionService.FindWorkflowGraphAsync(workflowDefinitionId, VersionOptions.Published, ...) and throws if no published definition exists for that definition ID.
• TestApplicationBuilder.AddWorkflow<T>() only configures elsa.AddWorkflow<T>(), which registers a runtime workflow type.
• The integration tests that pass with ExecuteWorkflow use workflow definition JSON files with "isPublished": true, load them via WithWorkflowsFromDirectory(...), and call PopulateRegistriesAsync() before running.

Relevant source:

• elsa-core/src/modules/Elsa.Workflows.Runtime/Activities/ExecuteWorkflow.cs
• elsa-core/src/common/Elsa.Testing.Shared.Integration/TestApplicationBuilder.cs
• elsa-core/src/common/Elsa.Testing.Shared.Integration/ServiceProviderExtensions.cs
• elsa-core/test/integration/Elsa.Workflows.IntegrationTests/Activities/ExecuteWorkflow/ExecuteWorkflowTests.cs
• elsa-core/test/integration/Elsa.Workflows.IntegrationTests/Activities/ExecuteWorkflow/Workflows/child-workflow.json

So if the child was only added via AddWorkflow<T>(), that explains both failures:

• ExecuteWorkflow cannot find a published definition.
• IWorkflowDefinitionPublisher.PublishAsync(definitionId) cannot publish it because there is no managed WorkflowDefinition entity for that definition ID yet.

Practical options:

• Import/publish the child workflow into the workflow-definition store first.
• In tests, mirror the integration setup: load workflow definitions and call PopulateRegistriesAsync().
• If you want pure programmatic invocation of an in-memory workflow type, invoke it through runtime APIs directly instead of ExecuteWorkflow, because ExecuteWorkflow is definition-store based.