Plan Metadata References

General Syntax

All plan metadata references follow the following basic syntax:

{{$plan.path.to.reference}}

• All references can be entered with $ in the Designer Cloud application. These references are turned into {{$ in the code definition. The double-curly braces forms the environment for metadata replacement. 

  Tip: In the Designer Cloud application, you can start by typing $.

• Nodes in the tree are separated with a . period.

Reference values that contain whitespace must be listed in the following manner:

{{$plan.path['path with white space in it'].rest.of.path}}

Notes:

• In the Designer Cloud application, you can use double-quotes when specifying a whitespace value. However, these double-quotes get escaped in the actual request. It is safer and more consistent to use single quotes.

Whitespace values typically appear when referencing the display name values for underlying objects, like recipes executed as part of a flow task.

$plan References

These references apply to the plan definition or current plan run.

Text to enter:

$plan.

{{$plan.duration|humanizeDuration}}

$http References

These references apply to HTTP tasks in the plan run.

Enter the following, after which you can see the two-letter codes for the HTTP tasks that have already executed in the current plan run:

$http_ax.

Response references

These references apply to the response returned as part of the task execution.

Enter the following, after which you can see the two-letter codes for the HTTP tasks that have already executed in the current plan run:

$http_ax.response.

$slack References

You can reference metadata from Slack tasks in the current plan run using the following reference types:

$slack_ax.

Supported metadata is identical to the metadata for HTTP tasks. See the previous section for details.

$delete References

You can reference metadata from Delete tasks in the current plan run using the following reference types:

$delete_92.

Supported metadata is identical to the metadata for HTTP tasks. See the previous section for details.

$flow References

These references apply to flow tasks in the plan run.

Enter the following, after which you can see the two-letter codes for the HTTP tasks that have already executed in the current plan run:

$flow_ax.

Output references

These references apply to the outputs that are generated in the flow tasks of the plan run.

Enter the following for flow task 7p with output My Output Name:

$flow_7p['My Output Name'].

Output column references

These references are available for output columns in the following syntax:

$flow_7p['My Output Name'].output.

Sources references

These references apply to the datasource files or tables that were used to generate the output.

Publishing actions references

These references apply to the publishing actions defined for the output.

Exploring Metadata

You can use the following functions and techniques to further explore the metadata returned from your plan execution.

Metadata functions

The following functions can be applied to select metadata references to further filter the raw values. 

humanizeDuration

In raw form, the duration metadata references return values that look like the following:

PT7.523S

You can apply the HumanizeDuration function to render the above into a more readable format:

{{ $plan.duration | humanizeDuration }}

The output of the above applied to the first value is the following:

7.523 seconds

uuid

You can generate a universally unique identifier, which can be delivered as part of a messaging payload:

{{ uuid() }}

Metadata structure

Some metadata references return complex or nested objects, which may return data that looks like the following:

[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]

In these cases, the nested data inside the object is not exposed by the basic reference. To explore further, you can use either of the following solutions:

Text: Create a for loop through the returned objects:

{% for value in $flow_6f.Job.columns.MyColumnName.topValues %}[{{value.key}}, {{value.count}}] {% endfor %}

JSON: add the | dump command to the end of your reference. You can modify the following example reference and try to insert in the Body textbox:

{{$flow_6f.Job.columns.MyColumnName.topValues | dump | replace('"', '\"')}}

For more information, see https://mozilla.github.io/nunjucks/templating.html#dump.

Parameter References

Flow parameters

To reference flow parameters as part of a flow task, use the following pattern:

$plan.params.<myParamName>

Environment parameters

You can reference environment parameters by name in your plan task metadata. For example:

env.MyEnvironmentParameter1

Additional References

Plan metadata reference information leverages the Nunjucks templating language, which provides additional capabilities such as loops, conditions, filters, and helper functions.

For more information, see https://mozilla.github.io/nunjucks/templating.html.