# Document history This section lists major changes to the *AWS Step Functions Developer Guide*. | Change | Description | Date changed | | --- | --- | --- | | New feature | Step Functions now supports additional data sources and observability metrics for Distributed Map. Step Functions supports additional data sources and new observability metrics for Distributed Map. With this update, Distributed Map now supports additional data inputs, so you can orchestrate large-scale analytics and ETL workflows. You can now process Athena data manifest and Parquet files directly, iterate over Amazon S3 objects under a specified prefix using `S3ListObjectsV2`, read from JSON objects and natively extract array data from JSON object from Amazon S3 or state input, eliminating the need for custom pre-processing. You also now get visibility into your Distributed Map usage with new metrics, including: Approximate Open Map Runs Count, Open Map Run Limit, and Approximate Map Runs Backlog Size. To learn more, see [ItemReader (Map)](input-output-itemreader.md) and [Monitoring Step Functions metrics using Amazon CloudWatch](procedure-cw-metrics.md). | Sep 18, 2025 | | Documentation-only update | Simplified and re-organized the integrating services topics based on customer feedback. To see the updates, check out the [Integrating services with Step Functions](integrate-services.md) chapter. | Sep 4, 2025 | | Updates | Step Functions will now auto-create roles and policy for optimized integrations with MediaConvert. For integrations with MediaConvert, Step Functions will now automatically create the necessary roles and policies required by your state machine. To learn more, see [Create an AWS Elemental MediaConvert job with Step Functions](connect-mediaconvert.md) and [Integrating optimized services with Step Functions](integrate-optimized.md). | March 14, 2025 | | New feature | Step Functions expands data source and output options for Distributed Map. Distributed map can process data from JSON Lines (JSONL) and a broader range of delimited file formats, such as semicolon-delimited files and tab-delimited files. Additionally, Distributed Map offers output transformations for greater control over result formatting. To learn more, [ItemReader (Map)](input-output-itemreader.md) and [ResultWriter (Map)](input-output-resultwriter.md). | February 7, 2025 | | Documentation-only update | Replaced the [Getting started tutorial](getting-started.md) with content from workshop presented at re:Invent 2024. | Dec 23, 2024 | | New feature | Manage state and transform data with Step Functions workflow variables and JSONata. With variables, you can pass data between the steps of your workflows. With JSONata, you gain an open source query and expression language to select and transform data in your workflows. To learn more, see [Passing data between states with variables](workflow-variables.md) and [Transforming data with JSONata in Step Functions](transforming-data.md). | November 22, 2024 | | New feature | Step Functions adds Infrastructure as Code (IaC) template generation The AWS Step Functions console provides the ability to export and download saved workflows as AWS CloudFormation or AWS SAM (SAM) templates. For AWS Regions that support AWS Infrastructure Composer, it additionally provides the ability to export your workflows to Infrastructure Composer and navigates to the Infrastructure Composer console, where you can continue to work with the newly generated template. To learn more, see [Exporting your workflow to IaC templates](exporting-iac-templates.md). | November 14, 2024 | | New feature | Step Functions adds the option to use AWS KMS and customer managed keys to encrypt your data You can add another layer of security by choosing a customer managed key to encrypt workflows, activities, and logs. To learn more, see [Data at rest encryption in Step Functions](encryption-at-rest.md). | July 25, 2024 | | Updates | Document structure update With page view data and depth analysis, documentation sections were restructured to increase visibility of important topics. The navigation was updated to reduce overall depth. Related topics were consolidated. Redirects were added so that bookmarks should lead to the updated locations. Send feedback if you notice errors or omissions after this massive update. Thank you\$1 | July 24, 2024 | | Updates | AWS managed policy updates - new permission: `states:ValidateStateMachineDefinition` Added information about new permission to check the syntax of a state machine that you provide. To learn more, see [AWS managed policies for AWS Step Functions](security-iam-awsmanpol.md). | April 29, 2024 | | New feature | Step Functions adds optimized integration for AWS Elemental MediaConvert AWS Elemental MediaConvert provides broadcast-grade video and audio file transcoding, which customers can automate with code to suit their media workflows. With the optimized integration for AWS Step Functions in MediaConvert, it is now possible to orchestrate using the low-code visual tool Workflow Studio. To learn more, see the documentation to [Manage AWS Elemental MediaConvert with Step Functions](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/connect-mediaconvert.html). | April 12, 2024 | | Updates | AWS managed policy updates - Update to an existing policy: `AWSStepFunctionsReadOnlyAccess` Added information about new read-only permissions for tags, distributed maps, and versions and aliases. To learn more, see [AWS managed policies for AWS Step Functions](security-iam-awsmanpol.md). | April 02, 2024 | | Updates | Step Functions adds support for Open Workflow metrics With open workflow metrics, you now have account-level visibility into the number of standard workflows in progress as well as your open workflow limit. You can manage workloads across all workflows, regardless of how they're started, to ensure smooth workflow operations. You can set CloudWatch alarms to monitor your workflows and proactively receive alerts as you approach your limits. Once alerted, you can effectively manage your workflows by taking actions such as stopping specific workflows or requesting a limit increase. Open workflow metrics is available to use in CloudWatch for standard workflows with no additional configuration required. To learn more, see [Execution Metrics](procedure-cw-metrics.md#cloudwatch-step-functions-execution-metrics). | February 29, 2024 | | Updates | Service integration additions and updates. For the list of new and updated AWS SDK integrations, see [Learning to use AWS service SDK integrations in Step Functions](supported-services-awssdk.md). For the full list of services, see [Supported AWS SDK service integrations](supported-services-awssdk.md#supported-services-awssdk-list). | January 18, 2024 | | New feature | Use Workflow Studio in Infrastructure Composer to build serverless workflows using AWS CloudFormation templates. For more information, see [Using Workflow Studio in Infrastructure Composer to build Step Functions workflows](use-wfs-in-app-composer.md). | November 27, 2023 | | New feature | Step Functions now lets you directly invoke public HTTPS endpoints and test individual states using a new Test State API. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 26, 2023 | | New feature | Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Bedrock. For more information, see the following topics: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 26, 2023 | | New feature | Step Functions now lets you redrive workflow executions of type Standard from their point of failure. For more information, see [Restarting state machine executions with redrive in Step Functions](redrive-executions.md) and [Redriving Map Runs in Step Functions executions](redrive-map-run.md). | November 15, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Published a new topic that explains how to run state machines on a schedule using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler. For more information, see [Using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler to start a Step Functions state machine execution](using-eventbridge-scheduler.md). | October 16, 2023 | | New feature | Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR Serverless. For more information, see the following topics: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 12, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added information about running state machines on a schedule using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler. For more information, see [Using EventBridge Scheduler](using-eventbridge-scheduler.md). | October 05, 2023 | | Update | Reorganized and updated the *Distributed Map state* topics for clarity, brevity, and establishing a clear journey map for new users. For more information, see [Using Map state in Distributed mode for large-scale parallel workloads in Step Functions](state-map-distributed.md). | October 6, 2023 | | Fixes | Fixed code samples in a tutorial to use AWS CDK v2. For more information, see [Using AWS CDK to create a Standard workflow in Step Functions](tutorial-lambda-state-machine-cdk.md). | September 19, 2023 | | Update | Added information about the enhanced error handling capabilities that Step Functions has introduced to identify errors clearly and implement retries with greater control. For more information, see [Fail workflow state](state-fail.md) and [Retrying after an error](concepts-error-handling.md#error-handling-retrying-after-an-error). | September 07, 2023 | | Update | Step Functions has added enhancements to Workflow Studio for streamlining workflow authoring experience. For more information, see [Developing workflows in Step Functions Workflow Studio](workflow-studio.md). | August 31, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added information about twice the actual metric count reported for the ExecutionsStarted metric. For more information, see [Metrics that report a count](procedure-cw-metrics.md#monitoring-using-cloudwatch-count-metrics). | July 25, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Step Functions has added two new sample projects that demonstrate the following common use cases for the Distributed Map state: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | July 17, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Published a new topic about deploying state machines using Terraform. For more information, see [Using Terraform to deploy state machines in Step Functions](terraform-sfn.md). | July 5, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Updated the following procedures to match changes to the Amazon EventBridge interface. [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | June 26, 2023 | | New feature | Step Functions now provides the ability to create multiple state machine versions and aliases for improved resiliency while deploying serverless workflows. For more information, see [Manage continuous deployments with versions and aliases in Step Functions](concepts-cd-aliasing-versioning.md). | June 22, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Improved the description of `TimeoutSeconds` and `HeartbeatSeconds` fields to describe how they're different from each other. For more information, see [Task state fields](state-task.md#task-state-fields). | June 22, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Published a new section that describes how to flatten an array of arrays typically returned as result for Parallel and Map states. For more information, see [Flattening an array of arrays](amazon-states-language-paths.md#flatten-array-of-arrays). | June 20, 2023 | | Update | Step Functions has expanded support for AWS SDK integrations by adding seven AWS services and 468 new API actions. For more information, see [Supported AWS SDK service integrations](supported-services-awssdk.md#supported-services-awssdk-list) and [Learning to use AWS service SDK integrations in Step Functions](supported-services-awssdk.md). | June 16, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Published a new topic that lists the AWS Regions in which recently launched Step Functions features are available. For more information, see [Recent feature launches](recent-launches.md). | June 16, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Step Functions now includes a section about AWS User Notifications, an AWS service that acts as a central location for your AWS notifications in the AWS Management Console. For more information, see [Events using User Notifications](using-user-notifications-sfn.md). | May 4, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added a new section that explains about the permissions needed to write child workflow execution results to an Amazon S3 bucket encrypted with an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key. For more information, see [IAM permissions for AWS KMS key encrypted Amazon S3 bucket](iam-policies-eg-dist-map.md#multiupload-dmap-result-policy). | April 29, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added a new topic that explains about the [ Data flow simulator](https://console.aws.amazon.com/states/home?region=us-east-1#/simulator) feature. For more information, see [Data flow simulator (unsupported)](test-and-debug.md#use-data-flow-simulator). | April 14, 2023 | | Quota update | Added information about default quota of 1000 for open Map Runs in each account. For more information, see [Quotas related to accounts](service-quotas.md#service-limits-accounts). | April 05, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added a Note about unavailability of X-Ray tracing for the [*Distributed Map state*](state-map-distributed.md). For more information, see [Trace Step Functions request data in AWS X-Ray](concepts-xray-tracing.md). | March 21, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added information about how Step Functions handles tag-based authorization. For more information, see [Tagging state machines and activities in Step Functions](sfn-best-practices.md#concepts-tagging) and [Creating tag-based IAM policies in Step Functions](tag-based-policies.md). | March 15, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added information about how Step Functions parses CSV files used as input in *Distributed Map state*. For more information, see [CSV file in an Amazon S3 bucket](input-output-itemreader.md#itemsource-example-csv-data). | March 14, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Added information about how Step Functions handles [cross-account](concepts-access-cross-acct-resources.md) invocations for the Run a Job (.sync) pattern. For more information, see [Run a Job (.sync)](connect-to-resource.md#connect-sync). | March 01, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Reduce the history retention period of your completed workflow executions from 90 days to 30 days. For more information about adjusting the retention period, see [Execution guarantees in Step Functions workflows](choosing-workflow-type.md#express-at-least-once-execution) and [Quotas related to state machine executions](service-quotas.md#service-limits-state-machine-executions). | February 21, 2023 | | Update | Step Functions has expanded support for AWS SDK integrations by adding 35 AWS services and 1100 new API actions. For more information, see [Supported AWS SDK service integrations](supported-services-awssdk.md#supported-services-awssdk-list) and [Learning to use AWS service SDK integrations in Step Functions](supported-services-awssdk.md). | February 17, 2023 | | Documentation-only update | Published a Getting Started tutorial series that walks you through the process of creating a workflow for credit card application using Step Functions. For more information, see [Learn how to get started with Step Functions](getting-started.md). | December 30, 2022 | | New feature | Step Functions adds support to orchestrate large-scale parallel workflows for data processing using a new Distributed mode for `Map` state. For more information, see [Using Map state in Distributed mode for large-scale parallel workloads in Step Functions](state-map-distributed.md). | December 01, 2022 | | New feature | Step Functions now supports access to cross-account AWS resources configured in other accounts. For more information, see [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 18, 2022 | | Update | Step Functions now provides a new console experience for viewing and debugging Express workflow executions. For more information see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 18, 2022 | | Update | Added support to optionally specify the `ExecutionRoleArn` parameter while using the `addStep` and `addStep.sync` APIs for the Amazon EMR optimized service integration. For more information, see [Create and manage Amazon EMR clusters with Step Functions](connect-emr.md). | September 20, 2022 | | Documentation-only update | Added a new topic that provides recommendations about optimizing cost while building serverless workflows using Step Functions. For more information, see [Optimizing costs using Express Workflows](sfn-best-practices.md#cost-opt-exp-workflows). | September 15, 2022 | | Update | Step Functions adds support for 14 new intrinsic functions for performing data processing tasks, such as array manipulations, data encoding and decoding, hash calculations, JSON data manipulation, math function operations, and unique identifier generation. Documentation-only update: Grouped all the existing and newly introduced intrinsic functions into the following categories based on the type of data processing task they help you perform: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) For more information, see [Intrinsic functions for JSONPath states in Step Functions](intrinsic-functions.md). | August 31, 2022 | | Update | Step Functions has expanded support for AWS SDK integrations by adding three more AWS services – AWS Billing Conductor, Amazon GameSparks, and Amazon Pinpoint SMS and Voice V2. For more information, see [Learning to use AWS service SDK integrations in Step Functions](supported-services-awssdk.md). | July 26, 2022 | | Documentation-only update | Added a new topic to include a summary of all the updates made to AWS SDK integrations supported by Step Functions. For more information, see [Learning to use AWS service SDK integrations in Step Functions](supported-services-awssdk.md) | July 26, 2022 | | Documentation-only update | *AWS Step Functions Developer Guide* now includes details about the execution metrics that are emitted specifically for Express Workflows. For more information, see [Execution metrics for Express Workflows](procedure-cw-metrics.md#cloudwatch-step-functions-execution-metrics-express-wf). | June 09, 2022 | | Update | Step Functions console enhancements The console now features a redesigned **Execution Details** page that includes the following enhancements: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) Documentation-only updates Added a new topic to explain the various types of information displayed in the **Execution Details** page. Also, added a tutorial to show how to examine this information. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 09, 2022 | | Update | Step Functions now provides a workaround to prevent the confused deputy security issue, which arises when an entity (a service or an account) is coerced by a different entity to perform an action. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 02, 2022 | | Update | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | April 19, 2022 | | New feature | Step Functions Local now supports AWS SDK integration and mocking of service integrations. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | January 28, 2022 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now supports creating an Amazon API Gateway REST API with synchronous express state machine as backend integration using the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK). For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | December 10, 2021 | | Update | Step Functions has added three new sample projects that demonstrate the integration of Step Functions and Amazon Athena's upgraded console. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 22, 2021 | | New feature | Step Functions has added Amazon VPC endpoints support for Synchronous Express Workflows. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 15, 2021 | | Update | AWS Step Functions has added three new sample projects that demonstrate how to use the Step Functions AWS Batch integration. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 14, 2021 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions has added AWS SDK integrations, letting you use the API actions for all of the more than two hundred AWS services. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | September 30, 2021 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions has added a visual workflow designer, the AWS Step Functions Workflow Studio. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | June 17, 2021 | | Update | AWS Step Functions has added four new APIs, `StartBuildBatch`, `StopBuildBatch`, `RetryBuildBatch` and `DeleteBuildBatch`, to the CodeBuild integration. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | June 4, 2021 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EventBridge. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 14, 2021 | | Update | AWS Step Functions has added a new sample project that shows how to use Step Functions and the Amazon Redshift Data API to run an ETL/ELT workflow. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | April 16, 2021 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions has a new data flow simulator in the console. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | April 8, 2021 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR on EKS. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | March 29, 2021 | | Update | YAML support for state machine definitions has been added to AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and CloudFormation. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | March 4, 2021 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with AWS Glue DataBrew. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | January 6, 2021 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions Synchronous Express Workflows are now available, giving you an easy way to orchestrate microservices. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 24, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon API Gateway. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 17, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 16, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Athena. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 22, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now supports tracing end-to-end workflows with AWS X-Ray, giving you full visibility across state machine executions and making it easier to analyze and debug your distributed applications. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | September 14, 2020 | | Update | AWS Step Functions now supports payload sizes up to 256 KiB of data as a UTF-8 encoded string. This lets you process larger payloads in both Standard and Express workflows. Your existing state machines do not need to be changed in order to use the larger payloads. However, you will need to update to the latest versions of the Step Functions SDK and Local Runner to use the updated APIs. For more information, see:[\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | September 3, 2020 | | Update | The Amazon States Language has been updated as follows: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | August 13, 2020 | | Update | AWS Step Functions now supports the Amazon SageMaker AI `CreateProcessingJob` API call. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | August 4, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions is now supported by AWS Serverless Application Model, making it easier to integrate workflow orchestration into your serverless applications. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 27, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions has introduced a new synchronous invocation for nesting Step Functions executions. The new invocation, arn:aws:states:::states:startExecution.sync:2, returns a JSON object. The original invocation, arn:aws:states:::states:startExecution.sync, continues to be supported, and returns a JSON-escaped string. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 19, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with AWS CodeBuild. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 5, 2020 | | New feature | Step Functions is now supported in [AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/toolkit-for-vscode/latest/userguide/building-stepfunctions.html), making it easier to create and visualize state machine based workflows without leaving your code editor. | March 31, 2020 | | Update | You can now configure logging to Amazon CloudWatch Logs for Standard workflows. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | February 25, 2020 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions can now be accessed without requiring a public IP address, directly from Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | December 23, 2019 | | New feature | Express Workflows are a new workflow type, suitable for high-volume event processing workloads such as IoT data ingestion, streaming data processing and transformation, and mobile application backends. For more information, review the following new and updated topics. [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | December 3, 2019 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 19, 2019 | | Update | AWS Step Functions has released the AWS Step Functions Data Science SDK. For more information, see the following. [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 7, 2019 | | Update | Step Functions now supports more API actions for Amazon SageMaker AI, and includes two new sample projects to demonstrate the functionality. For more information, see the following. [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 3, 2019 | | New feature | Step Functions supports starting new workflow executions by calling `StartExecution` as an integrated service API. See: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | August 12, 2019 | | New feature | Step Functions includes the ability to pass a task token to integrated services, and pause the execution until that task token is returned with `SendTaskSuccess` or `SendTaskFailure`. See: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) Step Functions now provides a way to access dynamic information about your current execution directly in the `"Parameters"` field of a state definition. See: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 23, 2019 | | New feature | Step Functions supports CloudWatch Events for execution status changes, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | May 8, 2019 | | New feature | Step Functions supports IAM permissions using tags. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | March 5, 2019 | | New feature | Step Functions Local is now available. You can run Step Functions on your local machine for testing and development. Step Functions Local is available for download as either a Java application, or as a Docker image. See [Testing state machines with Step Functions Local (unsupported)](sfn-local.md). | February 4, 2019 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions is now available in the Beijing and Ningxia regions. | January 15, 2018 | | New feature | Step Functions supports resource tagging to help track your cost allocation. You can tag state machines on the **Details** page, or through API actions. See [Tagging state machines and activities in Step Functions](sfn-best-practices.md#concepts-tagging). | January 7, 2019 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions is now available in the Europe (Paris), and South America (São Paulo) regions. | December 13, 2018 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions is now available the Europe (Stockholm) region. | December 12, 2018 | | New feature | Step Functions now integrates with some AWS services. You can now directly call and pass parameters to the API of these integrated services from a task state in the Amazon States Language. For more information, see: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | November 29, 2018 | | Update | Improved the description of `TimeoutSeconds` and `HeartbeatSeconds` in the documentation for task states. See [Task workflow state](state-task.md). | October 24, 2018 | | Update | Improved the description for the *Maximum execution history size* limit and provided a link to the related best practices topic. [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 17, 2018 | | Update | Added a new tutorial to the AWS Step Functions documentation: See [Starting a Step Functions workflow in response to events](tutorial-cloudwatch-events-s3.md). | September 25, 2018 | | Update | Removed the entry *Maximum executions displayed in Step Functions console* from the limits documentation. See [Step Functions service quotas](service-quotas.md). | September 13, 2018 | | Update | Added a best practices topic to the AWS Step Functions documentation on improving latency when polling for activity tasks. See [Avoiding latency when polling for activity tasks](sfn-best-practices.md#bp-activity-pollers). | August 30, 2018 | | Update | Improved the AWS Step Functions topic on activities and activity workers. See [Learn about Activities in Step Functions](concepts-activities.md). | August 29, 2018 | | Update | Improved the AWS Step Functions topic on CloudTrail integration. See [Recording Step Functions API calls with AWS CloudTrail](procedure-cloud-trail.md). | August 7, 2018 | | Update | Added JSON examples to CloudFormation tutorial. See [Using CloudFormation to create a workflow in Step Functions](tutorial-lambda-state-machine-cloudformation.md). | June 23, 2018 | | Update | Added a new topic on handling Lambda service errors. See [Handle transient Lambda service exceptions](sfn-best-practices.md#bp-lambda-serviceexception). | June 20, 2018 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions is now available the Asia Pacific (Mumbai) region. | June 28, 2018 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions is now available the AWS GovCloud (US-West) region. For information about using Step Functions in the AWS GovCloud (US-West) Region, see [AWS GovCloud (US)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/latest/UserGuide/using-govcloud-endpoints.html). | June 28, 2018 | | Update | Improved documentation on error handling for `Parallel` states. See [Error Handling](state-parallel.md#error-handling). | June 20, 2018 | | Update | Improved documentation about Input and Output processing in Step Functions. Learn how to use `InputPath`, `ResultPath`, and `OutputPath` to control the flow of JSON through your workflows, states, and tasks. See: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | June 7, 2018 | | Update | Improved code examples for parallel states. See [Parallel workflow state](state-parallel.md). | June 4, 2018 | | New feature | You can now monitor API and Service metrics in CloudWatch. See [Monitoring Step Functions metrics using Amazon CloudWatch](procedure-cw-metrics.md). | May 25, 2018 | | Update | StartExecution, StopExecution, and StateTransition now have increased throttling limits in the following regions: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) For more information see [Step Functions service quotas](service-quotas.md). | May 16, 2018 | | New feature | AWS Step Functions is now available the US West (N. California) and Asia Pacific (Seoul) regions. See [AWS Services by Region](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/regional-product-services/) for a list of supported regions. | May 5, 2018 | | Update | Updated procedures and images to match changes to the interface. | April 25, 2018 | | Update | Added a new tutorial that shows how to start a new execution to continue your work. See [Continue long-running workflows using Step Functions API (recommended)](tutorial-continue-new.md). This tutorial describes a design pattern that can help avoid some service limitations. See [Starting new executions to avoid reaching the history quota in Step Functions](sfn-best-practices.md#bp-history-limit). | April 19, 2018 | | Update | Improved introduction to states documentation by adding conceptual information about state machines. See [Discovering workflow states to use in Step Functions](workflow-states.md). | March 9, 2018 | | New feature | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | February 19, 2018 | | Update | Added a topic that describes an example activity worker written in Ruby. This implementation can be used to create a Ruby activity worker directly, or as a design pattern for creating an activity worker in another language.See [Example: Activity Worker in Ruby](concepts-activities.md#example-ruby-activity-worker). | February 6, 2018 | | Update | Added a new tutorial describing a design pattern that uses a Lambda function to iterate a count.See [Creating a Step Functions state machine that uses Lambda](tutorial-creating-lambda-state-machine.md). | January 31, 2018 | | Update | Updated content on IAM permissions to include DescribeStateMachineForExecution and UpdateStateMachine APIs.See [Creating granular permissions for non-admin users in Step Functions](concept-create-iam-advanced.md). | January 26, 2018 | | Update | Added newly available regions: Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Singapore). | January 25, 2018 | | Update | Updated tutorials and procedures to reflect that IAM allows you to select Step Functions as a role. | January 24, 2018 | | Update | Added a new Best Practices topic that suggests not passing large payloads between states. See [Using Amazon S3 ARNs instead of passing large payloads in Step Functions](sfn-best-practices.md#avoid-exec-failures). | January 23, 2018 | | Update | Corrected procedures to match updated interface for creating a state machine: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | January 17, 2018 | | New Feature | You can use Sample Projects to quickly provision state machines and all related AWS resources. See [Deploy a state machine using a starter template for Step Functions](starter-templates.md), Available sample projects include:[\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) These sample projects and related documentation replace tutorials that described implementing the same functionality. | January 11, 2018 | | Update | Added a Best Practices section that includes information on avoiding stuck executions. See [Best practices for Step Functions](sfn-best-practices.md). | January 5, 2018 | | Update | Added a note on how retries can affect pricing: Retries are treated as state transitions. For information about how state transitions affect billing, see [Step Functions Pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/step-functions/pricing/). | December 8, 2017 | | Update | Added information related to resource names: Step Functions accepts names for state machines, executions, activities, and labels that contain non-ASCII characters. Because such characters will prevent Amazon CloudWatch from logging data, we recommend using only ASCII characters so you can track Step Functions metrics. | December 6, 2017 | | Update | Improved security overview information and added a topic on granular IAM permissions. See [Security in AWS Step Functions](security.md) and [Creating granular permissions for non-admin users in Step Functions](concept-create-iam-advanced.md). | November 27, 2017 | | Update | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 6, 2017 | | Update | Rewrote the IAM instructions in the following sections to reflect changes in the IAM console: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | October 5, 2017 | | Update | Rewrote the [State Machine Data](concepts-statemachines.md#concepts-state-machine-data) section. | September 28, 2017 | | New feature | The [limits related to API action throttling](service-quotas.md#service-limits-api-action-throttling-general) are increased for all regions where Step Functions is available. | September 18, 2017 | | Update | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | September 14, 2017 | | Update | Rewrote the following tutorials to reflect changes in the Lambda console: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | August 28, 2017 | | New feature | Step Functions is available in Europe (London). | August 23, 2017 | | New feature | The visual workflows of state machines let you zoom in, zoom out, and center the graph. | August 21, 2017 | | New feature | An execution can't use the name of another execution for 90 days. When you make multiple `StartExecution` calls with the same name, the new execution doesn't run. For more information, see the [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/apireference/API_StartExecution.html#API_StartExecution_RequestParameters](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/apireference/API_StartExecution.html#API_StartExecution_RequestParameters) request parameter of the `StartExecution` API action in the *AWS Step Functions API Reference*. | August 18, 2017 | | Update | Added information about an alternative way of passing the state machine ARN to the [Creating a Step Functions API using API Gateway](tutorial-api-gateway.md) tutorial. | August 17, 2017 | | Update | Added the new Creating a Job Status Poller tutorial. | August 10, 2017 | | New feature | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | August 3, 2017 | | Update | Updated the instructions in the [Step 1: Create an IAM Role for API Gateway](tutorial-api-gateway.md#api-gateway-step-1) section. | July 18, 2017 | | Update | Corrected and clarified information in the [Choice workflow state](state-choice.md) section. | June 23, 2017 | | Update | Added information about using resources under other AWS accounts to the following tutorials: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | June 22, 2017 | | Update | Corrected and clarified information in the following sections: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | June 21, 2017 | | Update | Rewrote all tutorials to match the Step Functions console refresh. | June 12, 2017 | | New feature | Step Functions is available in Asia Pacific (Sydney). | June 8, 2017 | | Update | Restructured the [Using Amazon States Language to define Step Functions workflows](concepts-amazon-states-language.md) section. | June 7, 2017 | | Update | Corrected and clarified information in the [Creating an Activity state machine using Step Functions](tutorial-creating-activity-state-machine.md) section. | June 6, 2017 | | Update | Corrected the code examples in the [State machine examples using Retry and Catch](concepts-error-handling.md#error-handling-examples) section. | June 5, 2017 | | Update | Restructured this guide using AWS documentation standards. | May 31, 2017 | | Update | Corrected and clarified information in the [Parallel workflow state](state-parallel.md) section. | May 25, 2017 | | Update | Merged the Paths and Filters sections into the [Processing input and output in Step Functions](concepts-input-output-filtering.md) section. | May 24, 2017 | | Update | Corrected and clarified information in the [Monitoring Step Functions metrics using Amazon CloudWatch](procedure-cw-metrics.md) section. | May 15, 2017 | | Update | Updated the `GreeterActivities.java` worker code in the [Creating an Activity state machine using Step Functions](tutorial-creating-activity-state-machine.md) tutorial. | May 9, 2017 | | Update | Added an introductory video to the [What is Step Functions?](welcome.md) section. | April 19, 2017 | | Update | Corrected and clarified information in the following tutorials: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | April 19, 2017 | | Update | Added information about Lambda templates to the [Creating a Step Functions state machine that uses Lambda](tutorial-creating-lambda-state-machine.md) and [Handling error conditions in a Step Functions state machine](tutorial-handling-error-conditions.md) tutorials. | April 6, 2017 | | Update | Changed the "Maximum input or result data size" limit to "Maximum input or result data size for a task, state, or execution" (32,768 characters). For more information, see [Quotas related to task executions](service-quotas.md#service-limits-task-executions). | March 31, 2017 | | New feature | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | March 21, 2017 | | New feature | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | March 16, 2017 | | New feature | Step Functions is available in Europe (Frankfurt). | March 7, 2017 | | Update | Reorganized the topics in the table of contents and updated the following tutorials: [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | February 23, 2017 | | New feature | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | February 23, 2017 | | New feature | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | February 14, 2017 | | New feature | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | February 10, 2017 | | Update | Clarified the current behavior of the `ResultPath` and `OutputPath` fields in relation to `Parallel` states. | February 6, 2017 | | Update | [\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/document-history.html) | January 5, 2017 | | Update | Updated Lambda function examples to use the latest programming model. | December 9, 2016 | | Initial release | Initial release of AWS Step Functions. | December 1, 2016 |