Adding runtime support for BPEL extensions typically requires (1) reacting to navigation events from a BPEL engine executing an extended process model and (2) affecting the engine’s navigation behavior based on external triggers. This is usually achieved in a proprietary way for each engine and for each extension.

In this paper, we provide a systematic approach to controlling and reacting to process behavior as well as growing the set of supported control points, thus enabling support for multiple application domains in a composable manner in a BPEL engine. The framework presented in this paper (1) enables a BPEL engine to support extensions, even on existing BPEL processes, and (2) allows developers to create pluggable extension implementations that can be reused across multiple BPEL engines. An implementation of the approach is presented and used in three different projects that need widely differing extended BPEL capabilities.