step-functions

AWS Step Functions state machines orchestrate saga transactions by defining compensation steps that automatically trigger on failure, rolling back completed actions like payment charges or inventory reservations to maintain data consistency across distributed services.

Serverless workflow orchestration with AWS Step Functions handles errors by configuring retry policies with exponential backoff and catch blocks that route failures to fallback states, ensuring reliable execution of multi-step processes without manual intervention.

Standard workflows suit long-running, auditable orchestrations with distributed processing and human approval callbacks, while Express workflows handle high-volume, short-lived event-driven automation requiring rapid invocation and lower latency execution.

AWS Step Functions supports direct service integrations with DynamoDB, SQS, EventBridge, ECS, and Bedrock, allowing you to read, write, and message between services directly without writing unnecessary Lambda wrapper functions.

Human approval workflows in AWS Step Functions use callback patterns with Amazon SQS or EventBridge to pause state machine execution, wait for external manual authorization, and resume the order processing pipeline upon receiving the approval callback.

AWS Step Functions coordinates parallel processing by using Parallel or Map states to execute multiple branches or iterate over collections simultaneously, accelerating multi-step application workflows while maintaining centralized error handling and state management.