## How actions work

An action is a workflow component in Shopify Flow. It represents a task that's executed in a store or in an app when certain conditions are met. You can connect your app to Shopify Flow so that your app receives data when a workflow action runs.

This guide shows you how to add an action to your app so that merchants can use it in their workflows.

![A diagram that show how third party actions interface with Flow ](/assets/apps/flow/action_diagram.png)

## Next steps

- Follow our step by step guide on [how to create and test a Flow action](/docs/apps/build/flow/actions/create).
- Check out our action endpoint guide for more information on how to setup an [execution endpoint](/docs/apps/build/flow/actions/endpoints#flow-action-execution), a [custom configuration page preview endpoint](/docs/apps/build/flow/actions/endpoints#custom-configuration-page-preview) and [custom validation](/docs/apps/build/flow/actions/endpoints#custom-validation).
- Learn more about how to [return complex data](/docs/apps/build/flow/configure-complex-data-types) in a Flow action.
- Interested in building a custom configuration page? Follow this [guide](/docs/apps/build/flow/actions/build-config-ui) to learn more.