Document history
This section lists major changes to the AWS Step Functions Developer Guide.
Change | Description | Date changed |
---|---|---|
New feature | Step Functions adds optimized integration for AWS Elemental MediaConvert AWS Elemental MediaConvert provides broadcast-grade video and audio file transcoding, which customers can automate with code to suit their media workflows. With the optimized integration for AWS Step Functions in MediaConvert, it is now possible to orchestrate using the low-code visual tool Workflow Studio. To learn more, see the documentation to Manage AWS Elemental MediaConvert with Step Functions. |
April 12, 2024 |
Updates | Step Functions adds support for Open Workflow metrics With open workflow metrics, you now have account-level visibility into the number of standard workflows in progress as well as your open workflow limit. You can manage workloads across all workflows, regardless of how they're started, to ensure smooth workflow operations. You can set CloudWatch alarms to monitor your workflows and proactively receive alerts as you approach your limits. Once alerted, you can effectively manage your workflows by taking actions such as stopping specific workflows or requesting a limit increase. Open workflow metrics is available to use in CloudWatch for standard workflows with no additional configuration required. To learn more, see Execution metrics. |
February 29, 2024 |
Updates | Service integration additions and updates. For the list of new and updated AWS SDK integrations, see Change log for supported AWS SDK integrations. For the full list of services, see Supported AWS SDK service integrations. |
January 18, 2024 |
New feature | Use Workflow Studio in Application Composer to build serverless workflows using AWS CloudFormation templates. For more information, see Using Workflow Studio in Application Composer. |
November 27, 2023 |
New feature | Step Functions now lets you directly invoke public HTTPS endpoints and test individual states using a new Test State API. For more information, see: |
November 26, 2023 |
New feature | Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Bedrock. For more information, see the following topics: | November 26, 2023 |
New feature | Step Functions now lets you redrive workflow executions of type Standard from their point of failure. For more information, see Redriving executions and Redriving Map Runs. | November 15, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Published a new topic that explains how to run state machines on a schedule using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler. For more information, see Using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler with AWS Step Functions. |
October 16, 2023 |
New feature | Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR Serverless. For more information, see the following topics: | October 12, 2023 |
Documentation-only update | Added information about running state machines on a schedule using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler. For more information, see Using EventBridge Scheduler. | October 05, 2023 |
Update |
Reorganized and updated the Distributed Map state topics for clarity, brevity, and establishing a clear journey map for new users. For more information, see Using Map state in Distributed mode to orchestrate large-scale parallel workloads. |
October 6, 2023 |
Fixes | Fixed code samples in a tutorial to use AWS CDK v2. For more information, see Creating a Lambda state machine for Step Functions using AWS CDK. | September 19, 2023 |
Update | Added information about the enhanced error handling capabilities that Step Functions has introduced to identify errors clearly and implement retries with greater control. For more information, see Fail and Retrying after an error. | September 07, 2023 |
Update | Step Functions has added enhancements to Workflow Studio for streamlining workflow authoring experience. For more information, see AWS Step Functions Workflow Studio. | August 31, 2023 |
Documentation-only update | Added information about twice the actual metric count reported for the ExecutionsStarted metric. For more information, see Metrics that report a
count. |
July 25, 2023 |
Documentation-only update | Step Functions has added two new sample projects that demonstrate the following common use cases for the Distributed Map state: | July 17, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Published a new topic about deploying state machines using Terraform. For more information, see Deploying state machines using Terraform. |
July 5, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Updated the following procedures to match changes to the Amazon EventBridge interface. |
June 26, 2023 |
New feature | Step Functions now provides the ability to create multiple state machine versions and aliases for improved resiliency while deploying serverless workflows. For more information, see Manage continuous deployments with versions and aliases. | June 22, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Improved the description of |
June 22, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Published a new section that describes how to flatten an array of arrays typically returned as result for Parallel and Map states. For more information, see Flattening an array of arrays. |
June 20, 2023 |
Update |
Step Functions has expanded support for AWS SDK integrations by adding seven AWS services and 468 new API actions. For more information, see Supported AWS SDK service integrations and Change log for supported AWS SDK integrations. |
June 16, 2023 |
Documentation-only update | Published a new topic that lists the AWS Regions in which recently launched Step Functions features are available. For more information, see Recent feature launches. | June 16, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Step Functions now includes a section about AWS User Notifications, an AWS service that acts as a central location for your AWS notifications in the AWS Management Console. For more information, see Using AWS User Notifications with Step Functions. | May 4, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Added a new section that explains about the permissions needed to write child workflow execution results to an Amazon S3 bucket encrypted with an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key. For more information, see IAM permissions for AWS KMS key encrypted Amazon S3 bucket. |
April 25, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Added a new topic that explains about the Data flow
simulator |
April 14, 2023 |
Quota update |
Added information about default quota of 1000 for open Map Runs in each account. For more information, see Quotas related to accounts. |
April 05, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Added a topic that describes when to migrate AWS Data Pipeline workloads to Step Functions. This topic also provides a list of examples that explain how to perform the migration. For more information, see Migrating workloads from AWS Data Pipeline to Step Functions. |
March 30, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Added a Note about unavailability of X-Ray tracing for the Distributed Map state. For more information, see AWS X-Ray and Step Functions. |
March 21, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Added information about how Step Functions handles tag-based authorization. For more information, see Tagging in Step Functions and Tag-based Policies. |
March 15, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Added information about how Step Functions parses CSV files used as input in Distributed Map state. For more information, see CSV file in an Amazon S3 bucket. |
March 14, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Added information about how Step Functions handles cross-account invocations for the Run a Job (.sync) pattern. For more information, see Run a Job (.sync). |
March 01, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Reduce the history retention period of your completed workflow executions from 90 days to 30 days. For more information about adjusting the retention period, see Execution guarantees and Quotas related to state machine executions. |
February 21, 2023 |
Update |
Step Functions has expanded support for AWS SDK integrations by adding 35 AWS services and 1100 new API actions. For more information, see Supported AWS SDK service integrations and Change log for supported AWS SDK integrations. |
February 17, 2023 |
Documentation-only update |
Published a Getting Started tutorial series that walks you through the process of creating a workflow for credit card application using Step Functions. For more information, see Getting started with AWS Step Functions. |
December 30, 2022 |
New feature | Step Functions adds support to orchestrate large-scale parallel workflows for data processing using a new Distributed mode for |
December 01, 2022 |
New feature | Step Functions now supports access to cross-account AWS resources configured in other accounts. For more information, see | November 18, 2022 |
Update |
Step Functions now provides a new console experience for viewing and debugging Express workflow executions. For more information see: |
October 18, 2022 |
Update |
Added support to optionally specify the |
September 20, 2022 |
Documentation-only update |
Added a new topic that provides recommendations about optimizing cost while building serverless workflows using Step Functions. For more information, see Cost-optimization using Express Workflows. |
September 15, 2022 |
Update |
Step Functions adds support for 14 new intrinsic functions for performing data processing tasks, such as array manipulations, data encoding and decoding, hash calculations, JSON data manipulation, math function operations, and unique identifier generation. Documentation-only update:Grouped all the existing and newly introduced intrinsic functions into the following categories based on the type of data processing task they help you perform: For more information, see Intrinsic functions. |
August 31, 2022 |
Update |
Step Functions has expanded support for AWS SDK integrations by adding three more AWS services – AWS Billing Conductor, Amazon GameSparks, and Amazon Pinpoint SMS and Voice V2. For more information, see Change log for supported AWS SDK integrations. |
July 26, 2022 |
Documentation-only update |
Added a new topic to include a summary of all the updates made to AWS SDK integrations supported by Step Functions. For more information, see Change log for supported AWS SDK integrations |
July 26, 2022 |
Documentation-only update |
AWS Step Functions Developer Guide now includes details about the execution metrics that are emitted specifically for Express Workflows. For more information, see Execution metrics for Express Workflows. |
June 09, 2022 |
Update |
Step Functions console enhancementsThe console now features a redesigned Execution Details page that includes the following enhancements:
Documentation-only updatesAdded a new topic to explain the various types of information displayed in the Execution Details page. Also, added a tutorial to show how to examine this information. For more information, see: |
May 09, 2022 |
Update |
Step Functions now provides a workaround to prevent the confused deputy security issue, which arises when an entity (a service or an account) is coerced by a different entity to perform an action. For more information, see: |
May 02, 2022 |
Update |
|
April 19, 2022 |
New feature |
Step Functions Local now supports AWS SDK integration and mocking of service integrations. For more information, see: |
January 28, 2022 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now supports creating an Amazon API Gateway REST API with synchronous express state machine as backend integration using the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK). For more information, see: |
December 10, 2021 |
Update |
Step Functions has added three new sample projects that demonstrate the integration of Step Functions and Amazon Athena's upgraded console. For more information, see: |
November 22, 2021 |
New feature |
Step Functions has added Amazon VPC endpoints support for Synchronous Express Workflows. For more information, see: |
November 15, 2021 |
Update |
AWS Step Functions has added three new sample projects that demonstrate how to use the Step Functions AWS Batch integration. For more information, see: |
October 14, 2021 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions has added AWS SDK integrations, letting you use the API actions for all of the more than two hundred AWS services. For more information, see: |
September 30, 2021 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions has added a visual workflow designer, the AWS Step Functions Workflow Studio. For more information, see: |
June 17, 2021 |
Update |
AWS Step Functions has added four new APIs, |
June 4, 2021 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EventBridge. For more information, see:
|
May 14, 2021 |
Update |
AWS Step Functions has added a new sample project that shows how to use Step Functions and the Amazon Redshift Data API to run an ETL/ELT workflow. For more information, see: |
April 16, 2021 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions has a new data flow simulator in the console. For more information, see: |
April 8, 2021 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR on EKS. For more information, see: |
March 29, 2021 |
Update |
YAML support for state machine definitions has been added to AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and AWS CloudFormation. For more information, see: |
March 4, 2021 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with AWS Glue DataBrew. For more information, see:
|
January 6, 2021 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions Synchronous Express Workflows are now available, giving you an easy way to orchestrate microservices. For more information, see:
|
November 24, 2020 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon API Gateway. For more information, see:
|
November 17, 2020 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service. For more information, see:
|
November 16, 2020 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Athena. For more information, see:
|
October 22, 2020 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now supports tracing end-to-end workflows with AWS X-Ray, giving you full visibility across state machine executions and making it easier to analyze and debug your distributed applications. For more information, see:
|
September 14, 2020 |
Update | AWS Step Functions now supports payload sizes up to 256 KB of data as a UTF-8 encoded string. This lets you process larger payloads in both Standard and Express workflows. Your existing state machines do not need to be changed in order to use the larger payloads. However, you will need to update to the latest versions of the Step Functions SDK and Local Runner to use the updated APIs. For more information, see: |
September 3, 2020 |
Update |
The Amazon States Language has been updated as follows:
|
August 13, 2020 |
Update | AWS Step Functions now supports the Amazon SageMaker
|
August 4, 2020 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions is now supported by AWS Serverless Application Model, making it easier to integrate workflow orchestration into your serverless applications. For more information, see: |
May 27, 2020 |
New feature | AWS Step Functions has introduced a new synchronous
invocation for nesting Step Functions executions. The new invocation,
arn:aws:states:::states:startExecution.sync:2 , returns a
JSON object. The original invocation,
arn:aws:states:::states:startExecution.sync , continues to
be supported, and returns a JSON-escaped string. For more information, see:
|
May 19, 2020 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with AWS CodeBuild. For more information, see: |
May 5, 2020 |
New feature | Step Functions is now supported in AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code, making it easier to create and visualize state machine based workflows without leaving your code editor. |
March 31, 2020 |
Update |
You can now configure logging to Amazon CloudWatch Logs for Standard workflows. For more information, see: |
February 25, 2020 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions can now be accessed without requiring a public IP address, directly from Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). For more information, see: |
December 23, 2019 |
New feature |
Express Workflows are a new workflow type, suitable for high-volume event processing workloads such as IoT data ingestion, streaming data processing and transformation, and mobile application backends. For more information, review the following new and updated topics. |
December 3, 2019 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR. For more information, see: |
November 19, 2019 |
Update |
AWS Step Functions has released the AWS Step Functions Data Science SDK. For more information, see the following.
|
November 7, 2019 |
Update |
Step Functions now supports more API actions for Amazon SageMaker, and includes two new sample projects to demonstrate the functionality. For more information, see the following. |
October 3, 2019 |
New feature | Step Functions supports starting new workflow
executions by calling |
August 12, 2019 |
New feature | Step Functions includes the ability to pass a
task token to integrated services, and pause the execution until that
task token is returned with Step Functions now provides a way to access dynamic information about your
current execution directly in the |
May 23, 2019 |
New feature | Step Functions supports CloudWatch Events for execution status changes, see: |
May 8, 2019 |
New feature | Step Functions supports IAM permissions using tags. For more information, see: |
March 5, 2019 |
New feature | Step Functions Local is now available. You can run Step Functions on your local machine for testing and development. Step Functions Local is available for download as either a Java application, or as a Docker image. See Testing state machines locally. |
February 4, 2019 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions is now available in the Beijing and Ningxia regions. See Supported regions. |
January 15, 2018 |
New feature | Step Functions supports resource tagging to help track your cost allocation. You can tag state machines on the Details page, or through API actions. See Tagging in Step Functions. |
January 7, 2019 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions is now available in the Europe (Paris), and South America (São Paulo) regions. See Supported regions. |
December 13, 2018 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions is now available the Europe (Stockholm) region. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. |
December 12, 2018 |
New feature |
Step Functions now integrates with some AWS services. You can now directly call and pass parameters to the API of these integrated services from a task state in the Amazon States Language. For more information, see: |
November 29, 2018 |
Update |
Improved the description of |
October 24, 2018 |
Update |
Improved the description for the Maximum execution history size limit and provided a link to the related best practices topic. |
October 17, 2018 |
Update |
Added a new tutorial to the AWS Step Functions documentation: See Starting a State Machine Execution in Response to Amazon S3 Events. |
September 25, 2018 |
Update |
Removed the entry Maximum executions displayed in Step Functions console from the limits documentation. See Quotas. |
September 13, 2018 |
Update |
Added a best practices topic to the AWS Step Functions documentation on improving latency when polling for activity tasks. See Avoid latency when polling for activity tasks. |
August 30, 2018 |
Update |
Improved the AWS Step Functions topic on activities and activity workers. See Activities. |
August 29, 2018 |
Update |
Improved the AWS Step Functions topic on CloudTrail integration. See Logging Step Functions Using AWS CloudTrail. |
August 7, 2018 |
Update |
Added JSON examples to AWS CloudFormation tutorial. See Creating a Lambda state machine for Step Functions using AWS CloudFormation. |
June 23, 2018 |
Update |
Added a new topic on handling Lambda service errors. See Handle Lambda service exceptions. |
June 20, 2018 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions is now available the Asia Pacific (Mumbai) region. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. |
June 28, 2018 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions is now available the AWS GovCloud (US-West) region. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. For information about using Step Functions in the AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region, see AWS GovCloud (US). |
June 28, 2018 |
Update |
Improved documentation on error handling for |
June 20, 2018 |
Update |
Improved documentation about Input and Output processing in Step Functions.
Learn how to use |
June 7, 2018 |
Update |
Improved code examples for parallel states. See Parallel. |
June 4, 2018 |
New feature |
You can now monitor API and Service metrics in CloudWatch. See Monitoring Step Functions Using CloudWatch. |
May 25, 2018 |
Update |
StartExecution , StopExecution , and
StateTransition now have increased throttling limits in the
following regions:
|
May 16, 2018 |
New feature |
AWS Step Functions is now available the US West (N. California) and Asia Pacific (Seoul) regions. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. |
May 5, 2018 |
Update |
Updated procedures and images to match changes to the interface. |
April 25, 2018 |
Update |
Added a new tutorial that shows how to start a new execution to continue your work. See Continuing Long-running Workflow Executions as a New Execution. This tutorial describes a design pattern that can help avoid some service limitations. See Avoid reaching the history quota. |
April 19, 2018 |
Update |
Improved introduction to states documentation by adding conceptual information about state machines. See States. |
March 9, 2018 |
Update | In addition to HTML, PDF, and Kindle, the
AWS Step Functions Developer Guide is available on GitHub. To leave feedback, choose the GitHub
icon in the upper right-hand corner.
|
March 2, 2018 |
Update | Added a topic describing other resources
relating to Step Functions. See Related information. |
February 20, 2018 |
New feature |
|
February 19, 2018 |
Update | Added a topic that describes an example activity worker written in Ruby. This implementation can be used to create a Ruby activity worker directly, or as a design pattern for creating an activity worker in another language. | February 6, 2018 |
Update | Added a new tutorial describing a design
pattern that uses a Lambda function to iterate a count. See Creating a Step Functions state machine that uses Lambda. |
January 31, 2018 |
Update | Updated content on IAM permissions to
include DescribeStateMachineForExecution and
UpdateStateMachine APIs. |
January 26, 2018 |
Update | Added newly available regions:
Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Singapore). See Supported regions. |
January 25, 2018 |
Update | Updated tutorials and procedures to reflect that IAM allows you to select Step Functions as a role. | January 24, 2018 |
Update | Added a new Best Practices topic that suggests not passing large payloads between states. | January 23, 2018 |
Update | Corrected procedures to match updated interface for creating a state machine: | January 17, 2018 |
New Feature | You can use Sample
Projects to quickly provision state machines and all related
AWS resources. See Sample projects for Step Functions, Available sample projects include: NoteThese sample projects and related documentation replace tutorials that described implementing the same functionality. |
January 11, 2018 |
Update | Added a Best Practices section that includes information on avoiding stuck executions. See Best practices for Step Functions. | January 5, 2018 |
Update | Added a note on how retries can affect
pricing: NoteRetries are treated as state transitions. For information about how state transitions affect
billing, see Step Functions Pricing |
December 8, 2017 |
Update | Added information related to resource names:
NoteStep Functions allows you to create names for state machines, executions, and activities, and labels that contain non-ASCII characters. These non-ASCII names don't work with Amazon CloudWatch. To ensure that you can track CloudWatch metrics, choose a name that uses only ASCII characters. |
December 6, 2017 |
Update | Improved security overview information and added a topic on granular IAM permissions. See Security in AWS Step Functions and Creating Granular IAM Permissions for Non-Admin Users. | November 27, 2017 |
New Feature |
You can update an existing state machine. See Update your state machine. |
November 15, 2017 |
Update |
Added a note to clarify NoteUnhandled errors in Lambda are reported as |
October 17, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected and clarified IAM instructions and updated the screenshots in all tutorials. |
October 11, 2017 |
Update |
|
October 6, 2017 |
Update |
Rewrote the IAM instructions in the following sections to reflect changes in the IAM console:
|
October 5, 2017 |
Update |
Rewrote the State Machine Data section. |
September 28, 2017 |
New feature |
The limits related to API action throttling are increased for all regions where Step Functions is available. |
September 18, 2017 |
Update |
|
September 14, 2017 |
Update |
Rewrote the following tutorials to reflect changes in the Lambda console:
|
August 28, 2017 |
New feature |
Step Functions is available in Europe (London). |
August 23, 2017 |
New feature |
The visual workflows of state machines let you zoom in, zoom out, and center the graph. |
August 21, 2017 |
New feature |
ImportantAn execution can't use the name of another execution for 90 days. When you make multiple For more information, see the |
August 18, 2017 |
Update |
Added information about an alternative way of passing the state machine ARN to the Creating a Step Functions API using API Gateway tutorial. |
August 17, 2017 |
Update | Added the new Creating a Job Status Poller tutorial. |
August 10, 2017 |
New feature |
|
August 3, 2017 |
Update |
Updated the instructions in the Step 1: Create an IAM Role for API Gateway section. |
July 18, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Choice section. |
June 23, 2017 |
Update |
Added information about using resources under other AWS accounts to the following tutorials: |
June 22, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the following sections: |
June 21, 2017 |
Update |
Rewrote all tutorials to match the Step Functions console refresh. |
June 12, 2017 |
New feature |
Step Functions is available in Asia Pacific (Sydney). |
June 8, 2017 |
Update |
Restructured the Amazon States Language section. |
June 7, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Creating an Activity state machine using Step Functions section. |
June 6, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected the code examples in the State machine examples using Retry and using Catch section. |
June 5, 2017 |
Update |
Restructured this guide using AWS documentation standards. |
May 31, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Parallel section. |
May 25, 2017 |
Update |
Merged the Paths and Filters sections into the Input and Output Processing in Step Functions section. |
May 24, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Monitoring Step Functions Using CloudWatch section. |
May 15, 2017 |
Update |
Updated the |
May 9, 2017 |
Update |
Added an introductory video to the What is AWS Step Functions? section. |
April 19, 2017 |
Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the following tutorials: |
April 19, 2017 |
Update |
Added information about Lambda templates to the Creating a Step Functions state machine that uses Lambda and Handling error conditions using a Step Functions state machine tutorials. |
April 6, 2017 |
Update |
Changed the "Maximum input or result data size" limit to "Maximum input or result data size for a task, state, or execution" (32,768 characters). For more information, see Quotas related to task executions. |
March 31, 2017 |
New feature |
|
March 21, 2017 |
New feature |
|
March 16, 2017 |
New feature |
Step Functions is available in Europe (Frankfurt). |
March 7, 2017 |
Update |
Reorganized the topics in the table of contents and updated the following tutorials: |
February 23, 2017 |
New feature |
|
February 23, 2017 |
New feature |
|
February 14, 2017 |
New feature |
|
February 10, 2017 |
Update |
Clarified the current behavior of the |
February 6, 2017 |
Update |
|
January 5, 2017 |
Update |
Updated Lambda function examples to use the latest programming model. |
December 9, 2016 |
Initial release |
Initial release of AWS Step Functions. |
December 1, 2016 |