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+# ADR-0009: The Domain Service drives Flowable as an external-task job worker
+
+- **Status:** Accepted
+- **Date:** 2026-06-30
+- **Deciders:** Respellion engineering
+- **Relates to:** S-05 (#6); proposal #60; builds on ADR-0001 (loose coupling, §8.1/§8.2), S-03 (#4, the `registratie` BPMN), S-04 (#5, the ACL `OpenZaak` operation)
+
+## Context
+
+S-05 (#6) adds the **BIG Domain Service**. Submitting a registration must: create a
+`Registration` aggregate, **start the Flowable `registratie` process** (S-03), have the
+`OpenZaakAanmaken` task **open a zaak via the ACL** (S-04), and store the resulting zaak URL
+back on the aggregate.
+
+`OpenZaakAanmaken` is a Flowable **external-worker** service task (`flowable:type="external-worker"`,
+topic `OpenZaakAanmaken`). Flowable does not push it anywhere — it parks the job and waits for a
+worker to **acquire and lock** it, do the work, and **complete** it. Two coupling rules constrain
+who may do what:
+
+- **§8.2 — the Workflow Client is the only code that talks to Flowable.** BPMN models never embed
+  OpenZaak knowledge; they ask the Workflow Client to execute external tasks.
+- **§8.1 — the ACL is the only code that talks to ZGW.** The worker opens the zaak *through the ACL*,
+  never by constructing ZGW URLs itself.
+
+This is an ADR-worthy moment (§14): a service boundary is defined and both coupling rules are
+exercised. The open question is *how* the external task is driven.
+
+## Decision
+
+**The Domain Service drives the `OpenZaakAanmaken` task as a hosted external-task job worker
+(PRD §36). Orchestration is eventually consistent, not request-synchronous.**
+
+- **`POST /registrations` is fast and side-effecting only on the domain side.** It creates the
+  `Registration` aggregate in state `INGEDIEND`, persists it, and asks the Workflow Client to start
+  one `registratie` process instance, recording the process-instance id on the aggregate. It returns
+  immediately; it does **not** wait for the zaak to be opened.
+- **A hosted worker polls Flowable for `OpenZaakAanmaken` jobs.** It acquires and locks a job, calls
+  the ACL `OpenZaak` operation (§8.1), attaches the returned zaak URL to the matching aggregate
+  (`Registration.AttachZaak`), and completes the job in Flowable. The process then runs to its end
+  event.
+- **The Workflow Client is the only Flowable client (§8.2).** It lives in the Domain Service's
+  `Infrastructure` layer and speaks Flowable's REST API (start process-instance; acquire/lock/complete
+  external-worker jobs). No other code — not the Application layer, not the BPMN — knows Flowable
+  exists.
+- **The worker *logic* is an Application service over ports**, not Flowable-aware code. `OpenZaakWorker`
+  takes an acquired job (topic + the registration id it carries), calls `IAclClient` and
+  `IRegistrationStore`, and returns the zaak URL to complete with. The **polling loop** is a thin
+  `BackgroundService` in `Infrastructure` that fetches jobs via the Workflow Client and feeds them to
+  the worker. So the orchestration is covered by fast unit tests against fakes; only the REST framing
+  needs a container integration test.
+
+## Scope decisions for the minimal slice
+
+- **Registration persistence is in-memory.** The walking skeleton's *read* path is fed by
+  NRC → Event Subscriber → projection (S-06, #7), not by the domain database. An EF-backed domain
+  store buys nothing the demo needs yet, so it is a documented follow-up; the `IRegistrationStore`
+  port keeps that change additive. (PRD §88 envisions EF Core for the domain DB eventually.)
+- **The aggregate's state machine is minimal:** `INGEDIEND` on submission. Later flows (withdrawal,
+  beoordeling, herregistratie) add states in their own slices — they are out of scope here.
+- **No bsn flows to ZGW yet.** The ACL `OpenZaak` operation already default-fills the ZGW-mandatory
+  fields (ADR-0003) and takes the bsn as its domain payload; the domain hands it through unchanged.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- **Positive:** the submit request is decoupled from ACL/OpenZaak latency; the documented Common
+  Ground pattern (external-task worker) is realised; both coupling rules (§8.1, §8.2) hold with the
+  Flowable knowledge isolated to one Infrastructure class; the orchestration is unit-testable.
+- **Negative / deferred:**
+  - Eventual consistency: immediately after `POST /registrations` the aggregate has no zaak URL yet.
+    Acceptable — the read side is the projection, not the domain store.
+  - In-memory registration state is lost on restart; fine for the skeleton, replaced by an EF store
+    in a follow-up.
+  - The worker polls (no push); poll interval is a tuning knob, not a correctness concern, since
+    Flowable holds the job until completed.
+
+## Alternatives considered
+
+- **Synchronous acquire+complete inside the `POST /registrations` request** — rejected: simpler and
+  deterministic, but couples the submit request to ACL/OpenZaak latency and failure, and is not the
+  external-task worker pattern PRD §36 mandates. It would also make the request fail if OpenZaak is
+  briefly down, instead of the job simply staying parked for the worker to retry.
+- **A standalone Workflow Client service, separate from the Domain Service** — rejected for this
+  slice: the worker needs the domain's aggregate store and the ACL client anyway, and PRD §9 places
+  the Workflow Client inside the Domain Service deployment. A separate process adds a hop and a
+  shared store for no current benefit.
+- **Flowable pushes to a webhook instead of being polled** — rejected: Flowable's external-worker
+  model is pull-based (acquire/lock/complete); a push shim would re-implement it with weaker
+  delivery guarantees.
diff --git a/mkdocs.yml b/mkdocs.yml
index 32e7b71..73a9a55 100644
--- a/mkdocs.yml
+++ b/mkdocs.yml
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ nav:
       - "ADR-0006: ACL integration test provisioning": architecture/adr-0006-integration-test-provisioning.md
       - "ADR-0007: OpenZaak → NRC notification wiring": architecture/adr-0007-notification-wiring.md
       - "ADR-0008: Read projection store": architecture/adr-0008-read-projection-store.md
+      - "ADR-0009: External-task job worker": architecture/adr-0009-external-task-job-worker.md
   - Working in Gitea: gitea-workflow.md
   - Demo script: demo-script.md
   - Runbooks: