Guides HTTP Workflows Tutorial doesn't work - here is how to fix it.

[JarekLisowski]

I'm trying to create the HTTP workflow from the tutorial and found errors:

1. In "first Set Variable activity" there is:
   {{ Variables.QueryData.status ?? "all" }} | Liquid.
   This is wrong. Should be:
   {{ Variables.QueryData.status | default: "all" }}

?? is JS syntax.

2. HTTP Response content:
   First of all Task in JS is task (lowercase) so it should be:
   variables.Tasks
   But it still desn't work becasue it tries to serialize the .net types which are unknown so it throws the exception:
   System.ArgumentException, System.Private.CoreLib: Object of type '<>f__AnonymousType0#44[System.Int32,System.String,System.String,System.String][]' cannot be converted to type 'System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable1[System.Int32]'.

The solution is to set content to
variables.Tasks
and syntax to Variable. Then it works.

[sfmskywalker]

Thanks for writing this up. The correction makes sense.

On the runtime side, WriteHttpResponse accepts an object input and serializes non-string values to JSON, so using a variable/object input there is a valid path:

• elsa-core/src/modules/Elsa.Http/Activities/WriteHttpResponse.cs

There is also a sample workflow in elsa-samples that passes object content into WriteHttpResponse rather than forcing it through a mismatched scalar type:

• elsa-samples/src/aspnet/Elsa.Samples.AspNet.DynamicActivityProvider/Workflows/get-all-users-workflow.json

I couldn't find the exact tutorial source text in the current elsa-guides checkout, so I can't confidently map your report to a specific file from repo evidence alone. But the fix itself looks reasonable, and if that guide page is still current, a PR against the guides/docs source with those corrections would definitely be welcome.

[sfmskywalker]

Closing this as answered.

The correction on the Liquid expression and the WriteHttpResponse input shape is consistent with the current runtime behavior that accepts object input and serializes non-string content to JSON. The earlier reply also points to the closest repo-backed sample path for that behavior.

If the guide source is still current, a docs PR with the exact tutorial corrections would be welcome.