There are use cases when state machine needs to be created dynamically instead of defining static configuration at compile time. For example if there are custom components which are using its own state machines and these components are created dynamically it is impossible to have a static state machined build during the application start. Internally state machines are always build via a factory interfaces and this then gives user an option to use this feature programmatically. Configuration for state machine factory is exactly same as you’ve seen in various examples in this document where state machine configuration is hard coded.

Actually creating a state machine using @EnableStateMachine will work via factory so @EnableStateMachineFactory is merely exposing that factory via its interface.

@Configuration
@EnableStateMachineFactory
public static class Config6
    extends EnumStateMachineConfigurerAdapter<States, Events> {

    @Override
    public void configure(StateMachineStateConfigurer<States, Events> states)
            throws Exception {
        states
            .withStates()
                .initial(States.S1)
                .end(States.SF)
                .states(EnumSet.allOf(States.class));
    }

}

Now that you’ve used @EnableStateMachineFactory to create a factory instead of a state machine bean, it can be injected and used as is to request new state machines.

static class Bean3 {

    @Autowired
    StateMachineFactory<States, Events> factory;

    void method() {
        StateMachine<States,Events> stateMachine = factory.getStateMachine();
        stateMachine.start();
    }
}