name: servicenow-flow-designer user-invocable: false description: Execute custom scripts and logic within Flow Designer and IntegrationHub workflows. Covers FlowAPI methods, flow execution, and subprocess orchestration. Use when building workflow automations, executing flows programmatically from server scripts, triggering subflows conditionally, running IntegrationHub actions from code, or orchestrating multi-step approval and notification flows. Trigger this skill whenever the user mentions Flow Designer, subflows, FlowAPI, IntegrationHub, or wants to run a flow from a script.

Flow Designer Scripting

Scope: This skill covers Classic FlowAPI execution \u2014 running flows, subflows, and actions programmatically from server-side scripts using sn_fd.FlowAPI. For the Fluent SDK wfa automation API (declarative Flow(), wfa.trigger(), wfa.action()), see servicenow-fluent-development/FLOW-API.md.

Quick start

Execute flows programmatically:

var inputs = {};
inputs['sys_id'] = '57af7aec73d423002728660c4cf6a71c';

var result = sn_fd.FlowAPI.getRunner()
    .flow('global.my_flow')
    .inForeground()
    .withInputs(inputs)
    .run();

var contextId = result.getContextId();
var outputs = result.getOutputs();

Execute actions:

var result = sn_fd.FlowAPI.getRunner()
    .action('global.markapproved')
    .inForeground()
    .inDomain('TOP/ACME')
    .withInputs(inputs)
    .run();

Execute subflows:

var result = sn_fd.FlowAPI.getRunner()
    .subflow('my_app.process_request')
    .withInputs(inputs)
    .run();

var success = result.wasSuccessful();

Builder pattern

1. FlowAPI: Creates a getRunner() builder
2. ScriptableFlowRunner: Configure flow/action/subflow:
   • flow(), action(), subflow(), or datastream()
   • withInputs() - Pass parameters
   • inForeground() or inBackground()
   • inDomain() - For domain-separated instances
3. ScriptableFlowRunnerResult: Inspect results:
   • getContextId(), getOutputs(), getDomainId()
   • wasSuccessful(), getDate()

Best practices

• Use foreground execution for immediate results
• Use background for long-running flows
• Always check wasSuccessful() before accessing outputs
• Domain execution runs as System User in that domain
• Avoid async BR calls; use scheduled jobs instead
• Pass all required inputs explicitly
• Handle flow failures gracefully with error checking

Key APIs

Examples

For working code examples covering incident escalation, approval workflows, and notification patterns, see EXAMPLES.md

Reference

For complete API documentation and advanced patterns, see BEST_PRACTICES.md