What is a key characteristic of transactions in Mule?

The key characteristic of transactions in Mule is that all supported connectors must be configured to use transactions. In MuleSoft, transactions allow for a group of operations to be treated as a single unit of work. This means that either all operations succeed, or none do, ensuring data integrity and consistency.

For transactions to work properly in Mule, the connectors that are part of the transaction must explicitly support transaction management. This configuration ensures that the connectors can participate in the transaction's lifecycle, enabling features such as rollback if one of the operations fails. When all connectors involved are properly set up for transaction support, they can reliably commit or roll back changes, which is crucial for applications that interact with multiple data sources or services.

Understanding that transaction management is not automatic and requires manual configuration for each supported connector helps architects design applications that can effectively handle complex business logic while maintaining data integrity.