WORKFLOW_SERIALIZE

A symbol used to define custom serialization for user-defined class instances. The static method should accept an instance and return serializable data.

Usage

import { WORKFLOW_SERIALIZE, WORKFLOW_DESERIALIZE } from "@workflow/serde";

class Point {
  constructor(public x: number, public y: number) {}

  static [WORKFLOW_SERIALIZE](instance: Point) {
    return { x: instance.x, y: instance.y };
  }

  static [WORKFLOW_DESERIALIZE](data: { x: number; y: number }) {
    return new Point(data.x, data.y);
  }
}

API Signature

static [WORKFLOW_SERIALIZE](instance: T): SerializableData

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
`instance`	T	The class instance to serialize.

Returns

The method should return serializable data. This can be:

Primitives (string, number, boolean, null, undefined, bigint)
Plain objects with serializable values
Arrays of serializable values
Built-in serializable types (Date, Map, Set, RegExp, URL, etc.)
Other custom classes that implement serialization

Requirements

The method must be implemented as a static method on the class. Instance methods are not supported.

Both WORKFLOW_SERIALIZE and WORKFLOW_DESERIALIZE must be implemented together
The returned data must itself be serializable
The SWC compiler plugin automatically detects and registers classes that implement these symbols

This method runs inside the workflow context and is subject to the same constraints as "use workflow" functions:

No Node.js-specific APIs (like fs, path, crypto, etc.)
No non-deterministic operations (like Math.random() or Date.now())
No external network calls

Keep this method simple and focused on extracting data from the instance.