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Monorepo Support

Flowable Design supports connecting an app package to a specific subdirectory within a larger Git repository. This is useful in monorepo setups where multiple projects, teams, or Design apps share the same repository.

What is Monorepo Support?​

In a monorepo setup, a single Git repository contains multiple distinct projects or components. With monorepo support, you can point a Design app at a specific sub-path within the repository rather than the repository root.

For example, a repository might be structured as follows:

my-monorepo/
  backend/
    src/
    pom.xml
  frontend/
    src/
    package.json
  flowable-models/
    hr-app/
      processes/
      forms/
    finance-app/
      processes/
      forms/

In this case, you could connect one Design app to flowable-models/hr-app/ and another to flowable-models/finance-app/, each tracking its own models within the shared repository.

Configuring the Sub-Path​

When setting up a Git connection (either through Clone or Setup), you can specify a sub-path:

  1. In the Git setup form, enter the repository URL as usual.
  2. In the Sub-path field, enter the relative path within the repository where the app's models should be stored (e.g., flowable-models/hr-app).
  3. Complete the setup.

All Git operations (commit, pull, diff, history) will be scoped to the configured sub-path. Changes outside the sub-path are ignored.

Use Cases​

Multiple Design Apps in One Repository​

When an organization has several related Design apps that share a common lifecycle, storing them in a single repository simplifies management:

  • Shared branching strategy across all apps.
  • Single source of truth for all Flowable models.
  • Coordinated versioning and releases.

Design Models Alongside Application Code​

Many teams keep their Flowable models in the same repository as the application code that uses them:

  • Processes and forms versioned together with the Java/TypeScript code that extends them.
  • A single pull request can include both model changes and code changes.
  • CI/CD pipelines can deploy both models and code from the same commit.

Shared Repository Between Teams​

In larger organizations, a central repository might contain models from multiple teams:

  • Each team manages their own sub-path.
  • Teams can work independently while sharing the repository infrastructure.
  • Access control is managed at the Git hosting level (e.g., GitHub CODEOWNERS).

How Operations Are Scoped​

When a sub-path is configured:

  • Commits only include files within the sub-path.
  • Pull only applies changes within the sub-path.
  • Diffs compare files within the sub-path.
  • Commit history shows only commits that affected files within the sub-path.
  • Conflict resolution only surfaces conflicts for files within the sub-path.

This scoping ensures that unrelated changes in other parts of the repository do not affect the Design app.