Things Overview

Preview

DEFINE THING is a preview feature. It ships in broker 2.22. The syntax and behaviour may still change.

What a Thing is

A Thing groups everything that belongs to one asset (a pump, a PLC, a press, a line, a site) under one name: its connectors, models, agents, actions, rules and panels. You describe the asset once as a template, then deploy it as many times as you need from a root. The broker expands each root into ordinary DEFINE declarations, called its children, deploys them, and keeps owning them.

One unit: a root and all its children deploy together or not at all. If a step fails, every child is rolled back.
Live templates: editing a template redeploys every root that uses it, and only the children whose code changed.
Cascading removal: removing a root removes its children in reverse deploy order.
Protected children: a child can only be changed through its Thing. A direct add or remove is refused.
Dry run: -addThing --dryRun returns the full plan and each child’s expanded LoT, and changes nothing.
Recursive: templates can use other templates to any depth (site → line → cell → device).

A first Thing

DEFINE THING TEMPLATE TempSensor
    WITH PARAM limit 80
    WITH MODEL Reading WITH TOPIC "{{path}}/reading"
        ADD DOUBLE "temperature" WITH TOPIC "{{path}}/temp" AS TRIGGER
        ADD STRING "ts" WITH TIMESTAMP "ISO"
    WITH ACTION Overheat
    ON TOPIC "{{path}}/temp" DO
        SET "temp" WITH PAYLOAD AS DOUBLE
        IF {temp} > {{limit}} THEN
            PUBLISH TOPIC "{{path}}/alarm" WITH "overheat " + {temp}

DEFINE THING Oven
    WITH THING inlet OF TempSensor
    WITH THING outlet OF TempSensor
        WITH PARAM limit 120

Send both blocks in one -addThing command to $SYS/Coreflux/Command. TempSensor is a template and deploys nothing. Oven is a root and deploys four children:

Child	Kind	Resolved
`Oven_inlet_Reading`	MODEL	topic `Oven/inlet/reading`
`Oven_outlet_Reading`	MODEL	topic `Oven/outlet/reading`
`Oven_inlet_Overheat`	ACTION	fires on `Oven/inlet/temp`, alarms above 80
`Oven_outlet_Overheat`	ACTION	fires on `Oven/outlet/temp`, alarms above 120

{{path}} and {{limit}} are filled in when the broker expands the Thing. {temp} is an action variable: single braces always belong to the runtime and are never touched.

When to use a Thing

Use a Thing when	Use standalone definitions when
The same asset repeats (10 pumps, 3 lines)	Each entity is one of a kind
Several entities must deploy and be removed together	Entities have independent lifecycles
You want one place to change an asset’s logic	A quick test or a single action

Managing Things

Command	Does
`-addThing <DEFINE THING …>`	Adds or updates every Thing in the payload as one unit
`-addThing --dryRun <DEFINE THING …>`	Returns the plan, each child’s expanded code and every diagnostic. Changes nothing
`-removeThing <name>`	Removes a root and its children, or a template no Thing uses
`-listThings`	Lists every Thing with its kind (`root` or `template`), template, users and child count

Every Thing is published retained on $SYS/Coreflux/Things/<name> (the source), …/tree (the expanded instance tree) and, for roots, …/status (ok, degraded or error, from the children’s health). Children keep their own topics.

Quick Start

Coreflux MQTT Broker

LoT Language

Coreflux HUB

VS Code - LoT Notebooks

Coreflux Portal

Using AI with Coreflux

Product Updates

What a Thing is

A first Thing

When to use a Thing

Managing Things

Next steps

Thing Syntax

Agents Overview

​What a Thing is

​A first Thing

​When to use a Thing

​Managing Things

​Next steps

Thing Syntax

Agents Overview

What a Thing is

A first Thing

When to use a Thing

Managing Things

Next steps