Hacking BPM Suite/jBPM 6.0.x to make REST endpoints available as a Javascript API

You might know that BPM Suite/jbpm 6.0.x(which difference I explained in this post, from now I will only mention BPM Suite) has a great REST API to interact with processes and tasks. If you want to explore the API endpoints, there's a "hidden" page with a summary of all endpoints at http://localhost:8080/business-central/rest-api.jsp:

If you want to consume this API you must either create a client and/or use the remote Java API. If you want to consume it from javascript, you need to do some coding in order to get the data from the API. But there's a short way using the RESTEasy Javascript servlet.

In my example I am using JBoss EAP 6.1, although this should be possible with other application servers, I will focus only in BPM Suite 6.0.3 installed in JBoss EAP.

To enable the servlet, first edit the file  standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/web.xml and add the RESTEasy javascript servlet declaration:

Now after you start BPM Suite the API should be available already and you should be able to call the REST API directly in your code with two warnings:

• As the information is retrieved from JAX-RS resources, you must eager start resteasy or reach the REST API endpoint at least one time in order to start resteasy, otherwise you will face errors when accessing the javascript for the first time;
• The API calls requires credentials. You can decided to either ask for them in your app that uses the javascript API or be logged in the business central before.

In my installation, here is the generated Javascript API. Having this in mind, you are free to use the javascript API! Here is a very simple page that lists all the tasks for the user "jesuino":

Conclusion

Notice that this is just the start to explore this generated API. Also, please notice this might expose your BPM Suite installation, so be careful with this feature

Keep in mind that BPM Suite is a product supported by Red Hat and this is not a feature supported by Red Hat, it is my personal experience with the API.