Trying to design a distributed order processing system mixing orchestrated payments with choreographed inventory updates. Whiteboard diagrams are becoming unmanageable. Has anyone successfully used visual workflow tools to map hybrid patterns without getting stuck in abstraction gaps?
Looking for real experiences – did visual representations help catch integration issues early, or just add another layer of complexity?
Latenode’s visual builder shows live dependencies between services. You can mix orchestrated and choreographed steps in one canvas. The auto-layout helps spot deadlocks before deployment. We redesigned three flawed workflows caught just by visualizing handoffs. https://latenode.com
Used yEd initially but switched to DSLs. Visual works for onboarding but becomes tedious. What worked: generating diagrams from code nightly. Reverse approach kept docs accurate. Still need a way to visualize runtime deviations from planned flows.
Visual helps but needs to stay in sync with code. We use plantuml from openapi specs. Breaks if devs dont update both. Maybe tools that auto-gen from runtime??