Version: v0.1.0
Tagline: A self-hosted workflow engine for reliable step execution
Kairo is a lightweight, self-hosted backend system that allows developers and teams to define workflows as a series of steps and guarantees their execution in order.
Each step can be an HTTP call or a custom action, and Kairo ensures:
- Steps run in the correct order
- Progress is persisted in the database
- Failures do not lose state
- Execution can resume after crashes
Think of Kairo as a reliable to-do list for automated processes — every step is tracked, logged, and executed predictably.
Developers often face challenges when automating tasks like:
- CI/CD pipelines
- Webhook orchestration
- Multi-step API calls
- Internal workflow automation
Typical solutions involve ad-hoc scripts, cron jobs, or complex orchestration tools. These approaches are often:
- Hard to track
- Prone to failures
- Difficult to retry or recover
- Not centralized
Kairo solves these problems by providing:
- Persistent workflow and execution state
- Reliable step execution
- Easy API-based triggering
- Developer-first, self-hosted setup
v0.1.0 is the minimal viable version of Kairo, designed to deliver the core functionality:
- Define a workflow with one or more steps
- Trigger a workflow via HTTP (
POST /triggers/<workflow_name>) - Execute steps sequentially
- Persist workflow and step state in PostgreSQL
- Track execution logs and progress
- Simple Next.js dashboard for read-only monitoring
- Docker Compose setup for local development
These will come in future versions:
- Parallel step execution
- Cron or scheduled triggers
- Auth / API keys / RBAC
- Retry policies / exponential backoff
- Slack/email notifications
- Advanced search / analytics
- External cloud hosting (AWS, GCP, etc.)
- Clone the repository
- Start services with Docker Compose (API, Postgres, Redis)
- Define a workflow in the database
- Trigger the workflow via HTTP POST
- Monitor execution progress in the dashboard
Kairo provides predictability, durability, and observability for developers automating multi-step workflows.
Even in its minimal version, it offers a safe and structured way to automate tasks, making your automation more robust and maintainable.
- Introduce authentication and API keys
- Retry policies with backoff
- Scheduled/cron triggers
- Webhook integrations
- Parallel steps and DAG support