Triggering and managing machines from code

Hello

I'm struggling to find resources on methods for interacting with e.g. script machines from code.

Some basic examples of things we want to do:
Start a script machine reference from code
Get e.g. a handle back from the started machine, to be able to monitor running graphs
Pause/Stop a graph
etc

I know you can trigger an event from code which kinda solves the starting question to an extent, but it doesn't really suit my use case nor how I want to structure things. Are there other ways to manage graphs through code?