actionoutput

Actionoutput is a term used in software engineering to describe the data or signals produced by the execution of an action within a system. It encompasses returned results, emitted events, side effects, and any ancillary information generated during or after the action completes. Action outputs serve as the payload that downstream components consume to decide subsequent steps, update state, or trigger additional actions. In many architectures, outputs are structured with a type or category, a payload or value, and optional metadata such as a timestamp or provenance.

In practice, an action can be user-initiated (for example, clicking a button), system-initiated (such as a scheduled task), or part of a pipeline step. The actionoutput may be synchronous, delivered immediately, or asynchronous, becoming available later via queues, events, or streams. Common examples include returning a success flag and artifacts from a build step, emitting an event indicating a user interaction, or logging information and metrics as side effects. Across domains, actionoutputs are used to drive state machines, workflow orchestration, API responses, and UI updates.

Design considerations include determinism and idempotency of outputs, error handling and retry semantics, and provenance tracking to trace outputs back to the originating action. Effective use relies on clear contracts about output structure and how downstream components react to different output types.

See also: event, signal, output, side effect, payload, provenance.