when first creating your machine. It allows you to pass its input value straight through to its output, as well as add a fixed result - Task: You define a resource you wish Step Functions to run as well as a timeout period - Choice: Given an input, the state machine chooses the correct output - Wait: the state machine will pause and can wait until a specific time or until x amount of time has passed - Succeed: Simply the termination of the state machine in a successful fashion - Fail: Termination state for the state machine, in a failed way - Parallel: Executes a group of states as concurrently as possible and waits for each branch to terminate before moving on. - Map: allows you to iterate through a list of items and perform tasks on them. State Types