Looking into AWS Step Functions. I'd like to have a flow that stops at some point and waits for the user to open up some web form and enter some additional data before continuing the step function flow.
But I can't find a feature in the AWS docs for this. All I can think of is hosting a separate application (ECS, EC2, S3 site with Lambda backend, whatever) that writes to a database and then tells the step function to continue. Is this the easiest way to accomplish user input of this kind? Something more than an email with an Approve/Fail button.
AWS Step Functions can't natively pause for user input via a web form. The recommended approach is to use a Task state with a callback token: your workflow pauses and sends a token to your app, the user enters data on your web form, and your backend resumes the workflow by calling SendTaskSuccess with the token. So yes, hosting a web app or backend to collect input and trigger continuation is the standard solution—AWS doesn't provide a built-in feature for user data entry beyond simple approvals or waiting for a fixed time.