Actions can call another Action

[evantahler]

We should enable the ability to chain actions together, for one action to call another. This would create the ability for request-level service objects to be used.

Example usage:

import { action, Action } from "actionhero";

export class RandomNumber extends Action {
  constructor() {
    super();
    this.name = "randomNumber";
    this.description = "I am an API method which will generate a random number";
    this.outputExample = { randomNumber: 0.123 };
  }

  async run({ connection, response }) {
    response.randomNumber = Math.random();
  }
}

export class CombinedActon extends Action {
 constructor() {
    super();
    this.name = "combinedAction";
    this.description = "I let people know if the random number is big or small";
    this.outputExample = { randomNumber: 0.123, big: true };
  }

  async run(data) {
    // take the whole data argument and pass it to the other action
    // will `throw` if something goes wrong
    action.call('randomNunber', data)
    // response and other properties will be modified by the first action
    data.response.big = data.response.randomNumber > 0.5
  }
}

[gcoonrod]

Hmm. As a fan of pure functions I don't know that I like this. If there is behavior that you want to share between actions why not move it into an initializer?

[evantahler]

Some other thoughts on what this might allow:

• Expose something like await runAction(actionName, inputs) globally
  • this might replace some of what the specHelper is doing
  • this might make creating internal DSLs easier
• Optionally choose which middlewares to run await runAction(actionName, inputs, listOfMiddlewares) to test things, make special admin access to actions, etc

[dmpvost]

I'm just new in ActionHero, but it's one of my first question lol,

Could we call Action To action?

Could be nice

[evantahler]

Here's a proposal to accomplish this! #1628

[evantahler]

I'd love feedback in the PR!