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P2Lab State Machine

Introduction

What is a state machine?

Section titled “What is a state machine?”

Many things in Shopware move through a fixed set of statuses. An order starts as Open, becomes In progress, then Done or Cancelled. A payment is Open, then Paid, Refunded and so on. A delivery follows its own path.

Each of these is a state machine: a named list of possible states, plus the transitions that say which state you are allowed to move to next, and which action performs the move. The status of an order only ever changes by following one of these transitions — it can never jump to a state there is no transition for.

Shopware ships with several of these machines and relies on them for order processing and payments. Normally they can only be changed through database migrations written by a developer, and there is no place in the admin to even look at them.

What this plugin adds

Section titled “What this plugin adds”

State Machine Manager gives you a dedicated admin module to work with state machines directly:

  • Browse every state machine in your shop in one list.
  • Inspect and edit each machine across five tabs — General, States, Transitions, Diagram and History.
  • Manage states — add new ones, rename them and choose the initial state.
  • Manage transitions — define which action leads from one state to another.
  • Draw the flow on an interactive diagram, rearranging states and connecting them by dragging.
  • Validate a machine to catch common configuration problems.
  • Create your own custom state machines for your own processes.

Who it is for

Section titled “Who it is for”

The module is meant for shop operators and administrators who need to understand or adjust how statuses behave — for example adding an intermediate order status, renaming a state so it reads better for your team, or reviewing exactly which status changes are possible.

It is powerful, so it comes with guardrails. Shopware’s core state machines cannot be deleted, and no state, transition or machine that is still in use can be removed. A warning is shown whenever you edit a machine, because changing the wrong thing can affect order processing and payment flows.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”