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Connector-Proxy-in-5-mins.md

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+# Connectors and the Connector Proxy
+
+## Service Tasks
+
+1. Allow communication with external systems
+1. In the core SpiffWorflow library, implemented using the [delegate pattern](https://github.com/sartography/SpiffWorkflow/blob/main/SpiffWorkflow/spiff/specs/mixins/service_task.py#L51)
+   1. SpiffWorkflow has no knowledge of "http/Get", "aws/StartEC2Instance", "os/SpawnProcess"
+   1. SpiffWorkflow handles parsing extensions, evaluating expressions, delegation to the host app, updating task data
+1. The host application is responsible for the communication to the external system
+
+## Connector Proxy
+
+1. Middle man for external communication from the backend of Spiff Arena
+   1. Tailored for the backend, but could be used by other host applications
+1. Made up of some group of Connectors and a discovery mechanism
+1. Brokers communication to/from Connectors in a generic fashion
+1. Allows the backend to remain agnostic to all external dependencies needed for varying deployments, avoiding things like:
+   1. ClientA wants to write to AWS, ClientB refuses to use any app with any mention of AWS
+   1. ClientA requires an old version of SomeSDK, ClientB requires a bleeding-edge version that would conflict
+   1. ClientA really needs to talk to a library that is written in Java
+   1. ClientA has a proprietary library that cannot be included in the backend
+1. When the backend needs to facilitate a ServiceTask delegate call from SpiffWorkflow it does so in a generic fashion allowed by the Connector Proxy abstraction
+
+## Connectors
+
+1. Isolated Python packages that conform to a pre-defined protocol
+1. Do the "actual work" of talking to an external system
+   1. Use data provided by the Connector Proxy to form the needed request
+   1. Make the request using the required protocol (HTTPS/FTP/Gopher/Fax/OS System Calls/docker run)
+   1. Use the result to form a response that can be returned through the Connector Proxy
+
+