Actiondepends

Actiondepends is a term used in workflow and automation systems to denote explicit dependencies between actions within a process. It describes a mechanism by which one action cannot start until one or more other actions have completed, thereby enforcing a defined execution order without embedding sequencing logic inside each action.

In practice, actiondepends is expressed in a workflow description or script as a directive or field that lists prerequisite actions. An action with actiondepends on others will remain idle until all listed dependencies have finished. This enables parallelism for unrelated actions while ensuring that dependent steps run only when their prerequisites are satisfied. Typical implementations support multiple dependencies, error handling for failed prerequisites, and cycle detection to avoid deadlocks.

Semantics generally treat the listed dependencies as a conjunction: all specified actions must complete before the dependent action begins. Some systems may offer variations or extensions, such as conditional dependencies or different modes for handling failures in prerequisites. The concept is commonly realized as part of a directed acyclic graph (DAG) that the workflow engine uses to schedule tasks efficiently.

Relation to other concepts: actiondepends is closely related to dependencies in build and workflow systems. In other ecosystems, similar ideas may be referred to as depends_on, needs, prerequisites, or requirements, indicating that a given action requires certain other actions to be completed first. The term actiondepends emphasizes the dependency relationship at the action level within a workflow.

See also: dependency graph, workflow engine, task scheduling, DAG, orchestration.