semantica/docs/reference/pipeline.md

Pipeline

Robust orchestration engine for building, executing, and managing complex data processing workflows.

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🎯 Overview

• :material-pipe:{ .lg .middle } Pipeline Builder

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  Fluent API for constructing complex DAG workflows

• :material-play-circle:{ .lg .middle } Execution Engine

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  Robust execution with status tracking and progress monitoring

• :material-alert-circle-check:{ .lg .middle } Error Handling

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  Configurable retry policies, fallbacks, and error recovery

• :material-fast-forward:{ .lg .middle } Parallel Execution

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  Execute independent steps in parallel for maximum performance

• :material-cpu-64-bit:{ .lg .middle } Resource Scheduling

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  Manage CPU/Memory allocation for resource-intensive tasks

• :material-file-document-edit:{ .lg .middle } Templates

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  Pre-built templates for common workflows (ETL, GraphRAG)

!!! tip "When to Use" - ETL Workflows: Ingest -> Parse -> Split -> Embed -> Store - Graph Construction: Extract Entities -> Extract Relations -> Build Graph - Batch Processing: Processing large volumes of documents reliably

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⚙️ Algorithms Used

Execution Management

• DAG Topological Sort: Determines execution order of steps
• State Management: Tracks PENDING, RUNNING, COMPLETED, FAILED states
• Checkpointing: Saves intermediate results to allow resuming failed pipelines

Parallelism

• ThreadPoolExecutor: For I/O-bound tasks (network requests, DB writes)
• ProcessPoolExecutor: For CPU-bound tasks (parsing, embedding generation)
• Dependency Resolution: Identifies steps that can run concurrently

Error Handling

• Exponential Backoff: wait = base * (factor ^ attempt)
• Jitter: Randomization to prevent thundering herd problem
• Circuit Breaker: Stops execution after threshold failures to prevent cascading issues

Resource Scheduling

• Token Bucket: Rate limiting for API calls
• Semaphore: Concurrency limiting for resource constraints
• Priority Queue: Scheduling critical tasks first

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API Reference

Types

• Pipeline — Pipeline definition dataclass
• PipelineStep — Pipeline step definition dataclass
• StepStatus — Enum: pending, running, completed, failed, skipped
• ExecutionResult — Execution result dataclass
• PipelineStatus — Enum: pending, running, paused, completed, failed, stopped
• ValidationResult — Validation result dataclass
• RetryPolicy — Retry policy dataclass
• RetryStrategy — Enum: linear, exponential, fixed
• ErrorSeverity — Enum: low, medium, high, critical
• FailureRecovery — Failure recovery dataclass
• Task — Parallel task dataclass
• ParallelExecutionResult — Parallel execution result dataclass
• ResourceType — Enum: cpu, gpu, memory, disk, network
• Resource — Resource definition dataclass
• ResourceAllocation — Resource allocation record dataclass

PipelineBuilder

Fluent interface for constructing pipelines.

Methods:

• add_step(step_name, step_type, **config) — Add a step
• connect_steps(from_step, to_step, **options) — Add dependency
• set_parallelism(level) — Configure parallelism
• build(name="default_pipeline") — Build pipeline
• build_pipeline(pipeline_config, **options) — Build from dict
• register_step_handler(step_type, handler) — Register handler
• get_step(step_name) — Get step by name
• serialize(format="json") — Serialize builder state
• validate_pipeline() — Validate pipeline

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import PipelineBuilder

builder = (
    PipelineBuilder()
    .add_step("ingest", "ingest", handler=ingest_handler)
    .add_step("parse", "parse", dependencies=["ingest"], handler=parse_handler)
    .add_step("embed", "embed", dependencies=["parse"], model="text-embedding-3-large")
    .set_parallelism(2)
)
pipeline = builder.build(name="MyPipeline")

step = builder.get_step("parse")
serialized = builder.serialize(format="json")
validation = builder.validate_pipeline()

PipelineSerializer

Serialization utilities for pipelines.

Methods:

• serialize_pipeline(pipeline, format="json")
• deserialize_pipeline(serialized_pipeline, **options)
• version_pipeline(pipeline, version_info)

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import PipelineBuilder, PipelineSerializer

builder = PipelineBuilder()
pipeline = builder.add_step("step1", "type1").build()

serializer = PipelineSerializer()
serialized = serializer.serialize_pipeline(pipeline, format="json")
restored = serializer.deserialize_pipeline(serialized)
versioned = serializer.version_pipeline(restored, {"version": "1.1"})

ExecutionEngine

Executes pipelines and manages lifecycle.

Methods:

• execute_pipeline(pipeline, data=None, **options) — Run pipeline
• pause_pipeline(pipeline_id) — Pause execution
• resume_pipeline(pipeline_id) — Resume execution
• stop_pipeline(pipeline_id) — Stop execution
• get_pipeline_status(pipeline_id) — Get status
• get_progress(pipeline_id) — Get progress

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import ExecutionEngine

engine = ExecutionEngine(max_workers=4)
result = engine.execute_pipeline(pipeline, data={"path": "document.pdf"})

status = engine.get_pipeline_status(pipeline.name)
progress = engine.get_progress(pipeline.name)

engine.pause_pipeline(pipeline.name)
engine.resume_pipeline(pipeline.name)
engine.stop_pipeline(pipeline.name)

Failure Handling

Classes: FailureHandler, RetryHandler, FallbackHandler, ErrorRecovery

FailureHandler Methods:

• handle_step_failure(step, error, **options)
• classify_error(error)
• set_retry_policy(step_type, policy)
• get_retry_policy(step_type)
• retry_failed_step(step, error, **options)
• get_error_history(step_name=None)
• clear_error_history()

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import FailureHandler, RetryPolicy, RetryStrategy

handler = FailureHandler(default_max_retries=3, default_backoff_factor=2.0)
policy = RetryPolicy(max_retries=5, strategy=RetryStrategy.EXPONENTIAL, initial_delay=1.0)
handler.set_retry_policy("network", policy)

classification = handler.classify_error(RuntimeError("timeout"))
history_before = handler.get_error_history()
handler.clear_error_history()

Parallelism

Classes: ParallelismManager, ParallelExecutor

ParallelismManager Methods:

• execute_parallel(tasks, **options)
• execute_pipeline_steps_parallel(steps, data, **options)
• identify_parallelizable_steps(pipeline)
• optimize_parallel_execution(pipeline, available_workers)

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import ParallelismManager, Task, ParallelExecutor

def work(x):
    return x * 2

manager = ParallelismManager(max_workers=4)
tasks = [Task(task_id=f"t{i}", handler=work, args=(i,)) for i in range(4)]
results = manager.execute_parallel(tasks)

executor = ParallelExecutor(max_workers=2)
exec_results = executor.execute_parallel(tasks)

Resources

Class: ResourceScheduler

Methods:

• allocate_resources(pipeline, **options)
• allocate_cpu(cores, pipeline_id, step_name=None)
• allocate_memory(memory_gb, pipeline_id, step_name=None)
• allocate_gpu(device_id, pipeline_id, step_name=None)
• release_resources(allocations)
• get_resource_usage()
• optimize_resource_allocation(pipeline, **options)

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import ResourceScheduler, ResourceType

scheduler = ResourceScheduler()
cpu = scheduler.allocate_cpu(cores=2, pipeline_id="p1")
mem = scheduler.allocate_memory(memory_gb=1.0, pipeline_id="p1")
usage = scheduler.get_resource_usage()
scheduler.release_resources({cpu.allocation_id: cpu, mem.allocation_id: mem})

Validation

Class: PipelineValidator

Methods:

• validate_pipeline(pipeline_or_builder, **options)
• validate_step(step, **constraints)
• check_dependencies(pipeline_or_builder)
• validate_performance(pipeline, **options)

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import PipelineValidator, PipelineBuilder

builder = PipelineBuilder()
builder.add_step("a", "type")
builder.add_step("b", "type", dependencies=["a"])

validator = PipelineValidator()
result = validator.validate_pipeline(builder)
deps = validator.check_dependencies(builder)
perf = validator.validate_performance(builder.build())

Templates

Classes: PipelineTemplateManager, PipelineTemplate

PipelineTemplateManager Methods:

• get_template(template_name)
• create_pipeline_from_template(template_name, **overrides)
• register_template(template)
• list_templates(category=None)
• get_template_info(template_name)

Example:

from semantica.pipeline import PipelineTemplateManager

tm = PipelineTemplateManager()
names = tm.list_templates()
info = tm.get_template_info(names[0])
builder = tm.create_pipeline_from_template(names[0])
pipeline = builder.build()

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Configuration

Environment Variables

export PIPELINE_MAX_WORKERS=4
export PIPELINE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT=300
export PIPELINE_CHECKPOINT_DIR=./checkpoints

YAML Configuration

This module does not include built-in YAML loaders. Use your own configuration system to populate arguments for PipelineBuilder, ExecutionEngine, and related classes.

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Integration Examples

RAG-Style Pipeline

from semantica.pipeline import PipelineBuilder, ExecutionEngine

builder = (
    PipelineBuilder()
    .add_step("ingest", "ingest")
    .add_step("chunk", "chunk", dependencies=["ingest"])
    .add_step("embed", "embed", dependencies=["chunk"]) 
    .add_step("store_vectors", "store_vectors", dependencies=["embed"]) 
)

pipeline = builder.build(name="RAGPipeline")
engine = ExecutionEngine(max_workers=4)
result = engine.execute_pipeline(pipeline, data={"path": "document.pdf"})

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Best Practices

1. Idempotency: Ensure steps are idempotent (can be run multiple times without side effects) to support retries.
2. Granularity: Keep steps focused on a single task. Smaller steps are easier to debug and retry.
3. Context Passing: Use the execution context to pass metadata between steps, not just return values.
4. Error Handling: Always define specific exceptions for retries; don't retry on ValueError or TypeError.

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Troubleshooting

Issue: Pipeline stuck in RUNNING state. Solution: Check for deadlocks in dependency graph or infinite loops in steps. Use timeout_seconds.

Issue: PickleError during parallel execution. Solution: Ensure all data passed between steps is serializable. Avoid passing open file handles or database connections.

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See Also

• Ingest Module - Common first step
• Split Module - Common processing step
• Vector Store Module - Common sink step

Cookbook

• Pipeline Orchestration