01-creating-outputs.md

Creating outputs

For each input work item, you can create any amount of output work items. These will be forwarded to the next step of a process, or set as the final result if there are no further steps.

In most cases, it's enough to create an output item directly using the outputs object:

workitems.outputs.create(
    payload={"key": "value"},
    files=["path/to/file.txt"],
)

Internally, Control Room keeps a relationship between the parent and child work items. The above example always uses the currently reserved item as the parent, but it's also possible to create an output explicitly from the input item:

with workitems.inputs.reserve() as item:
    out = item.create_output()
    out.payload = {"key": "value"}
    out.save()

In some cases, it's also useful to create an output item and then modify it before saving:

item = workitems.outputs.create(save=False)

for index, path in enumerate(directory.glob("*.pdf")):
    item.add_file(path, name=f"document-{index}")

item.save()