Boto3 Step Functions – Complete Tutorial

AWS Step Functions is a visual workflow service that allows you to orchestrate AWS services, automate business processes, and build serverless applications. Step Functions workflows manage failures, retries, parallelization, service integrations, and observability to help developers focus on higher-value business logic. This article will cover how to manage AWS Step Functions workflows (state machines) using the Boto3 library (Python SDK for AWS).

If you’re new to the Boto3 library, we encourage you to check out the Introduction to Boto3 library article.

What is Step Functions

AWS Step Functions is an orchestration service that allows you to use AWS Lambda functions and other AWS services to build and automate business-critical workflows. It allows you to describe your processes as a series of event-driven steps, each powered by AWS Lambda or other supported AWS services and responsible for its part of the process. Every workflow is described in JSON-like syntax.

We’ve recently covered Step Functions in the following articles:

• How to start using AWS Step Functions
• AWS Step Functions – How to manage long-running tasks

In addition to those articles, we strongly recommend you to watch the “Building Business Workflows with AWS Step Functions” re:Invent video:

Getting started with Boto3 Step Functions

As an example, let’s create a workflow that consists of two Lambda functions and uses the Choice state.

Demo State Machine

• ProcessTransaction – is the Choice state that uses theTransactionType input value to choose the next step (process purchase or process refund)
• ProcessPurchase – is the Task implemented by the Lambda function
• ProcessRefund – is the Task implemented by the Lambda function

Here’s the workflow visualization:

Here’s the workflow definition:

{
    'Comment': 'Transaction Processor State Machine',
    'StartAt': 'ProcessTransaction',
    'States': {
        'ProcessTransaction': {
            'Type': 'Choice',
            'Choices': [
                {
                    'Variable': '$.TransactionType',
                    'StringEquals': 'PURCHASE',
                    'Next': 'ProcessPurchase'
                },
                {
                    'Variable': '$.TransactionType',
                    'StringEquals': 'REFUND',
                    'Next': 'ProcessRefund'
                }
            ]
        },
        'ProcessPurchase': {
            'Type': 'Task',
            'Resource': process_purchase_arn,
            'End': True
        },
        'ProcessRefund': {
            'Type': 'Task',
            'Resource': process_refund_arn,
            'End': True
        }
    }
}

Create Step Functions workflow

To create the Step Functions workflows, you must use the create_state_machine() method for the Boto3 SFN client.

We first create two Lambda functions for our State Machine for our demo.

For more information on working with AWS Lambda using Boto3, please look at our Working with AWS Lambda in Python using the Boto3 article.

Process purchase Lambda

This is the demo Lambda function that is supposed to process a purchase:

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    print('event:', event)
    response = {
        'TransactionType': event['TransactionType'],
        'Message': 'From Process Purchase',
    }
    return response

Process refund Lambda

This is the demo Lambda function that is supposed to process a refund:

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    print('event:', event)
    response = {
        'TransactionType': event['TransactionType'],
        'Message': 'From Process Refund',
    }
    return response

Now, we need to zip our functions and upload them to the AWS using Boto3:

To create a Lambda function zip archive from Python code, you need to use the shutil.make_archive() method.

import shutil
shutil.make_archive(output_filename, 'zip', dir_name)

Deploying Lambda functions

Next, we must define a Lambda function IAM role with the Lambda execution permissions.

For simplicity, we’ll use AWS managedLambdaBasicExecution role.

For more information on working with IAM in Python using Boto3, check out our Working with IAM in Python using the Boto3 article.

import boto3
iam_client = boto3.client('iam')
lambda_client = boto3.client('lambda')
with open('process_purchase.zip', 'rb') as f:
	process_purchase_zip = f.read()
with open('process_refund.zip', 'rb') as f:
	process_refund_zip = f.read()
  
role = iam_client.get_role(RoleName='LambdaBasicExecution')
process_purchase_response = lambda_client.create_function(
    FunctionName='process_purchase',
    Runtime='python3.9',
    Role=role['Role']['Arn'],
    Handler='process_purchase.lambda_handler',
    Code=dict(ZipFile=process_purchase_zip),
    Timeout=300, # Maximum allowable timeout
)
process_refund_response = lambda_client.create_function(
    FunctionName='process_refund',
    Runtime='python3.9',
    Role=role['Role']['Arn'],
    Handler='process_refund.lambda_handler',
    Code=dict(ZipFile=process_refund_zip),
    Timeout=300, # Maximum allowable timeout
)
print(process_purchase_response)
print(process_refund_response)

Here’s an execution output:

Step Functions workflow execution IAM role

Now, let’s grant Step Functions workflow (state machine) permissions to trigger Lambda functions:

import boto3
import json 
iam = boto3.client('iam')
role_policy = {
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "Service": "states.amazonaws.com"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
    }
  ]
}
response = iam.create_role(
  RoleName='StepFunctionLambdaBasicExecution',
  AssumeRolePolicyDocument=json.dumps(role_policy),
)
attach_policy_response = iam.attach_role_policy(
    RoleName='StepFunctionLambdaBasicExecution',
    PolicyArn='arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSLambdaRole'
)
print(response)
print(attach_policy_response)

Here’s an execution output:

Step Functions workflow deployment

Finally, we can deploy the Step Functions workflow:

import boto3
import json
sfn_client = boto3.client('stepfunctions')
lambda_client = boto3.client('lambda')
iam_client = boto3.client('iam')
process_purchase_lambda = lambda_client.get_function(
    FunctionName='process_purchase'
)
process_refund_lambda = lambda_client.get_function(
    FunctionName='process_refund'
)
role = iam_client.get_role(RoleName='LambdaBasicExecution')
process_purchase_arn = process_purchase_lambda['Configuration']['FunctionArn']
process_refund_arn = process_refund_lambda['Configuration']['FunctionArn']
asl_definition = {
    'Comment': 'Transaction Processor State Machine',
    'StartAt': 'ProcessTransaction',
    'States': {
        'ProcessTransaction': {
            'Type': 'Choice',
            'Choices': [
                {
                    'Variable': '$.TransactionType',
                    'StringEquals': 'PURCHASE',
                    'Next': 'ProcessPurchase'
                },
                {
                    'Variable': '$.TransactionType',
                    'StringEquals': 'REFUND',
                    'Next': 'ProcessRefund'
                }
            ]
        },
        'ProcessPurchase': {
            'Type': 'Task',
            'Resource': process_purchase_arn,
            'End': True
        },
        'ProcessRefund': {
            'Type': 'Task',
            'Resource': process_refund_arn,
            'End': True
        }
    }
}
response = sfn_client.create_state_machine(
    name='ProcessTransactionStateMachine',
    definition=json.dumps(asl_definition),
    roleArn=role['Role']['Arn']
)
print(response)

Here’s an execution output:

Describe Step Functions workflow

To describe the Step Functions workflow, you need to use the describe_state_machine() method for the Boto3 SFN client.

import boto3
sfn_client = boto3.client('stepfunctions')
state_machine_arn = 'arn:aws:states:ap-northeast-1:585584209241:stateMachine:ProcessTransactionStateMachine'
response = sfn_client.describe_state_machine(
    stateMachineArn=state_machine_arn
)
print(response)

Here’s an execution output:

Execute Step Functions workflow

To execute the Step Functions workflow, you must use the start_execution() method for the Boto3 SFN client.

In our demo example, the Step Functions workflow expects the following JSON data structure as an input:

{
    TransactionType: "PURCHASE"
}

Depending on the TransactionType, State Machine will invoke different Lambda functions.

Expected transaction types are:

• PURCHASE
• REFUND

Note: if there’s no input data for the Step Function workflow, you still have to provide an empty JSON structure, for example: "{}".

import boto3
import json
sfn_client = boto3.client('stepfunctions')
state_machine_arn = 'arn:aws:states:ap-northeast-1:585584209241:stateMachine:ProcessTransactionStateMachine'
response = sfn_client.start_execution(
    stateMachineArn=state_machine_arn,
    name='test1',
    input=json.dumps({ 'TransactionType': 'PURCHASE' })
)
print(response)

Here’s an execution output:

Based on the provided input, you’ll see different execution results:

List Step Functions workflows

To list Step Functions workflows, you must use the list_state_machines() method for the Boto3 SFN client.

import boto3
import json
sfn_client = boto3.client('stepfunctions')
response = sfn_client.list_state_machines()
print(response)

Here’s an execution output:

Delete Step Functions Workflow

To delete Step Functions workflows, you need to use the delete_state_machine() method for the Boto3 SFN client.

import boto3
sfn_client = boto3.client('stepfunctions')
state_machine_arn = 'arn:aws:states:ap-northeast-1:585584209241:stateMachine:ProcessTransactionStateMachine'
response = sfn_client.delete_state_machine(
    stateMachineArn=state_machine_arn
)
print(response)

Here’s an execution output:

Additional Learning Resources

Free hands-on AWS workshops

We recommend the following free AWS Lambda Workshops to get more hands-on experience on the subject:

• AWS Lambda Workshop
• Migrate Spring Boot applications to AWS Lambda
• Building CI/CD pipelines for Lambda canary deployments using AWS CDK
• Content Generation Lambda@Edge

Also, we recommend the following free AWS Step Functions Workshops:

• The AWS Step Functions Workshop

Paid courses

From our experience, these are the best hands-on paid learning materials today related to Serverless, AWS Lambda, and Step Functions:

Summary

In this article, we’ve covered how to manage AWS Step Functions using the Python Boto3 library. We’ve created a demo Step Function workflow that invokes different Lambda functions depending on the provided input.