What is orchestrator?

Orchestrator is a workflow automation tool that ships as one single program, without needing a database server or separate services to install. A workflow, called a flow, is an ordered list of tasks, where each task type is a small plugin bundle that can be written in any programming language, and the tool ships with one built in plugin for making web requests. Flows can be edited two ways at once, either as plain YAML text or through a visual drag and drop builder, and both stay in sync with each other. The tool supports scheduling flows with cron style timing that respects time zones and has configurable rules for what happens if the program was offline when a scheduled run should have fired. It can fan a task out to run in parallel over a list of items, with a live view showing progress on each item individually. Every time a flow is saved it keeps a full history of past versions that can be restored later, and sensitive values like passwords or API keys can be stored encrypted, with those values hidden from logs and results. The entire program, meaning the web interface, the programming interface, the scheduler, and the part that actually runs tasks, is built as one Rust program with its data kept in a single SQLite database file. The visual interface itself is a single embedded web page, so nothing extra needs to be hosted separately. It requires creating a username and password on first launch, which the documentation notes makes it reasonably safe to expose on a public web address. While a run is happening, its status, progress counters, and logs stream live to the browser. For heavier setups, execution can also be routed to separate worker machines while the main program stays in control, rather than running every task on the same machine as the web interface. To try it, a developer needs Rust and Node.js installed to build it from source, or can instead run a ready-made Docker container that already includes everything needed. A guided demo script is included that sets up a sample flow, triggers a run, and follows its progress automatically. The project's code is released under the MIT license.