An Action is one operation performed in a Workflow. Actions are executed sequentially by default, with parallel execution as a configuration option. An Action returns a true or false exit code, which can be used (or ignored) in the Workflow’s execution.

A Hop links Actions in a Workflow or Transforms in a Pipeline. In Workflows, Hops operate based on the exit status of previous Actions, Hops in Pipelines pass data between Transforms.

Pipelines are the actual data workers. Operations in a Pipeline read, modify, enrich, clean and write data. Orchestration of Pipelines is done through othere Pipelines and/or Workflows.

A Transform is a unit of work performed in a Pipeline. Typical Transform operations are reading data from files, databases, performing lookups or joins, enriching, cleaning data and more. All transforms in a Pipeline are executed in parallel. Transforms process data and move batches of processed data on Hops for processing by subsequent Actions.

A Workflow is a sequence of operations that are performed sequentially by default (with optional parallel execution). Workflows usually do not operate on the data directly, but perform orchestration tasks. Typical tasks in a Workflow consist of retrieving and archiving data, sending emails, error handling etc. )