JD Supply Chain Low-Code Rule Engine Platform: Design, Challenges, and Solutions

In the industry, rule engines are common technical tools, often open‑source like Drools, used to separate mutable business rules from application code, improving delivery efficiency and reducing maintenance costs. However, existing open‑source engines face obstacles in high‑traffic internet scenarios, lack non‑technical user participation, and miss standardized, scalable architectures.

To address these issues, JD Supply Chain R&D built a low‑code rule engine platform called Haina, targeting both business and development roles. The platform supports high‑concurrency internet workloads, provides standardized extensibility, and has enabled over 100 extension points and 400 business rules within four months, supporting more than 14 core JD projects with an average delivery cycle of 0.5 days.

The platform’s long‑term goal is to shift and broaden development functions, allowing safe, self‑service rule creation by non‑technical roles, thereby optimizing delivery models and laying the foundation for ecosystem‑scale deployment.

In JD’s fulfillment scenario, the platform has already allowed roughly 20 % of requirements to be directly delivered by business roles, with expectations to reach 40 %.

Challenges identified include performance under peak loads (over a billion orders per day) and the high learning curve of DSLs for non‑technical users. The solution combines a visual designer for rule composition, automatic generation of engine description files, and SDK‑based execution, ensuring nanosecond‑level rule processing and seamless integration.

The core principle is a visual design interface where business users compose rules, which the platform translates into engine‑readable files; these are then intercepted and executed via SDKs in the application system.

Key features include lightweight integration (single‑day SDK adoption), high performance (nanosecond rule execution, validated during JD’s 11.11 promotion), separation of development and business roles, and a visual, drag‑and‑drop rule composition experience.

Overall, the Haina platform demonstrates how a low‑code, visual rule engine can dramatically accelerate delivery, reduce development effort, and empower business users while maintaining high performance and scalability.