ECA documentation stopped being only for humans. The ECA Guide at ecaguide.org is now machine-readable infrastructure - an MCP server at /mcp with three tools (search_docs, get_page, list_sections), an llms.txt structured index, llms-full.txt with about 151,000 words, and clean Markdown for any page by adding index.md to its URL. All 1,206 plugins are documented and auto-generated at /plugins/.
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ECA, FlowDrop, and Maestro all draw boxes and connect them with arrows, so people keep asking whether three Drupal workflow modules means a split community. Not quite. Dries Buytaert, Randy Kolenko, Shibin Das, and I are writing a shared orchestration design spec, disagreeing productively in writing. One axis explains all three: how much state a run carries. ECA reacts statelessly to any Drupal event across the whole request surface.
Building workflows blind - configure, deploy, hope, check logs - was the reality for years. ECA's integrated test, replay, and debug features close the feedback loop. Put the modeler in listening mode, trigger events, see execution results immediately with token values at each step. A small widget appears on any page where ECA processed events - click it, modeler opens in overlay with recorded execution data, replay what just happened right there in context.
The new Workflow Modeler is a from-scratch implementation built in six weeks: React 18 + TypeScript, infinite canvas, execution replay, live testing, four export formats (Recipe/Archive/JSON/SVG), and a standalone embeddable viewer. Around 87,000 lines, more than 3,400 test cases, about 2.1x as much test code as production code.
ECA's in-context customization removes the learning curve barrier. A lightning bolt icon appears next to form fields with applicable templates. Click it, select a template, configure parameters - done. No need to understand events, conditions, or tokens. Templates are ECA models with special template tokens that define where they apply and what users can customize. Technical users can transition directly to the full modeler from context.
The Modeler API completes the architectural separation between model owners (systems like ECA and Migrate) and modelers (visual UIs like BPMN.iO and Workflow Modeler). Module maintainers can now offer visual configuration without building custom UIs. The API automatically provides routing, permissions, save orchestration, import/export, testing, and Drush commands. This is infrastructure that compounds: 4 model owners × 3 modelers = 12 working combinations with zero glue code.
This post tells the story of the ten months that took ECA from Dries Buytaert' private "1% of what it could be" feedback in June/July 2025 to a keynote at Drupal DevDays Athens in April 2026, by way of DriesNote moments in Vienna and Chicago.
This article explores how ECA (Event-Condition-Action) can handle common authentication workflows in Drupal, including access denied redirects, user registration forms, and post-login actions. It demonstrates how ECA models can replace multiple contributed modules while offering greater flexibility — such as role-based redirects after login, hiding unnecessary password fields during account creation, and automatically assigning roles based on email domains.
This article discusses how Drupal, despite its mature and robust APIs, lacks a unified notification framework — leaving site builders to navigate hundreds of separate modules for different notification types (new content, comments, user registrations, form submissions, etc.), each with its own configuration and limitations.
This article explains how ECA (Event Condition Action) can be used to modify Drupal forms without writing custom PHP code — historically the most common reason for creating custom Drupal modules. While ECA currently allows users to alter form elements, validation, and submission processing through a visual model stored as configuration, there are pain points like a blank-canvas starting experience and the need for Drupal knowledge.