[[using-shell-components-flow]]
= Flow

ifndef::snippets[:snippets: ../../../../../src/test/java/org/springframework/shell/docs]

When you use xref:components/ui/index.adoc[Flow Components] to build something that involves
use of a multiple components, your implementation may become a bit cluttered.
To ease these use cases, we added a
`ComponentFlow` that can hook multiple component executions together
as a "`flow`".

The following listings show examples of flows and their output in a shell:

[source, java, indent=0]
----
include::{snippets}/FlowComponentSnippets.java[tag=snippet1]
----

[asciinema,rows=15]
----
include::example$component-flow-showcase-1.cast[]
----

NOTE: Normal execution order of a components is same as defined with a builder.

It's possible to conditionally choose where to jump in a flow by using a `next`
function and returning target _component id_. If this returned id is either _null_
or doesn't exist flow is essentially stopped right there.

[source, java, indent=0]
----
include::{snippets}/FlowComponentSnippets.java[tag=snippet2]
----

[asciinema,rows=11]
----
include::example$component-flow-conditional-1.cast[]
----


TIP: The result from running a flow returns `ComponentFlowResult`, which you can
use to do further actions.