JSON Objects as Inputs to Workflows

[quintenrosseel]

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1. Is this request related to a challenge you're experiencing? Tell me about your story.

I'm trying to use my Dify workflow as a tool call, from another service. (e.g. VAPI.ai).

However, the Start block of Dify doesn't allow me to select a JSON Object as an input type.
Is there a way so that I can call my Dify workflow with a JSON object as input? Other blocks clearly allow this as IO, so I'm wondering why I cannot use this.

So, a POST request to https://api.dify.ai/v1/workflows/run with the following body:

{
   "inputs": {
      "obj_attr": {
        "list": ["a", "b", "c,"], 
        "obj": {
           "nested_attribute": "Hello World!" 
         }
      }
   }, 
   "response_mode": "blocking"
   "user": "test-123"
}

And being able to parse that body as part of the workflow.
The issue is that I cannot select a Object as input type.

2. Additional context or comments

No response

3. Can you help us with this feature?

• I am interested in contributing to this feature.

[perzeuss]

For now, please use paragraph and pass the JSON as string. You can parse the JSON with a code block.

[quintenrosseel]

Thank you for your suggestion. 🙌
I'll give this a try, however:

1. I don't always control how other tools perform tool calls. This shifts the problem upstream.
2. This feels hacky.

So, a longer-term and consistent solution would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[laelhalawani]

i agree this isn't a great solution and more of a hack than actual solution, objects should be generally supported as inputs at least to some extent

[Yevanchen]

We will support this capability soon.