Introducing flowctl
I'm excited to annouce the alpha release of flowctl, an open source and modern self-service workflow execution platform.
With flowctl, you can define complex workflows as simple actions that can be triggered by users with custom inputs. These flows can be run locally on the server or on remote nodes via SSH. Actions can use different executors. It could be a simple bash/python script or it could be something custom and complex. There's built-in support for approvals, SSO, and RBAC.
Motivation
If you manage a homelab or handle infra at work, you might have shell scripts that do useful things. But in order to use those scripts, you would have to SSH into the machines or use something like Ansible. Now how do you delegate these actions to someone else? You would have to also delegate the access to these systems.
I needed something for my homelab and was also looking for tools at work to turn repetitive tasks into self-service offerings. I tried Backstage, it's a solid project, but felt like bringing a truck to a bicycle race. We use Rundeck at Zerodha, which gets the job done, but the UI hasn't aged well and SSO is locked behind the enterprise paywall.
All I wanted was: a modern UI that makes scripts accessible, runs on remote nodes without agents, and includes SSO/RBAC by default. Basically a CI/CD system that people can trigger on-demand with custom inputs.
I started with a few prototypes back in Nov 2024. I experimented with a plugin architecture where executors are grpc plugins. That didn't work out. I shelved the project until June 2025 when a conversation with rhnvrm and vividvilla on how Rundeck could be improved got me interested in working on this again.
What's in the Alpha Release
This initial release includes:
- SSO and RBAC
- Execution on remote nodes via SSH (fully agentless)
- Approvals
- Cron based scheduling
- Flow editor UI
- Encrypted credentials and secrets store
- Docker and Script executors
- Namespaces
Coming soon:
- Flow execution notifications via email
- Git and S3 sync for flows
- Fine-grained RBAC
- Much more...
Try It Out
Check out the Demo or the Quick Start guide to get up and running.
Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests on GitHub.
Thanks to knadh for the valuable insights and early feedback that shaped flowctl.