Agentic Workflow

Universal orchestration engine for AI agents.

Every workflow coordinated. Every step tracked. Every failure recovered. Always.

Problems Solved · Quickstart · 24 Capabilities · How It Works · MCP Tools · Benchmarks · Install · API · Paper

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Every orchestration tool solves one pattern.

Airflow runs DAGs but requires Kubernetes. Temporal does durable execution but needs a server. GitHub Actions does CI but can't branch dynamically. Zapier connects triggers but can't roll back. Every tool requires infrastructure, and none is AI-native.

The current fixes don't work. YAML pipelines are rigid -- you can't add a step at runtime. Cron schedulers don't know about holidays or service health. Retry logic is one-size-fits-all. Approval gates are yes/no checkboxes. And no orchestration tool lets your AI agent create, modify, and reason about the workflow itself.

AgenticWorkflow orchestrates every coordination pattern in a single engine. DAGs, state machines, batch processing, stream processing, fan-out/fan-in -- all through 124 MCP tools. Not "configure a YAML file." Your agent thinks about workflows -- plans them, validates them, executes them, retries intelligently, rolls back on failure, and learns from every execution.

Problems Solved (Read This First)

• Problem: every orchestration tool requires infrastructure (Kubernetes, servers, cloud services).

Solved: single .awf binary file. Zero infrastructure. Works offline.

• Problem: workflow tools handle one pattern (DAGs OR state machines OR batch, never all).

Solved: one engine for all patterns -- DAGs, FSMs, batch, stream, fan-out, triggers, schedules.

• Problem: retries are "3 times with backoff" regardless of failure type.

Solved: failure-classified retry -- different strategies for rate limits, network errors, auth failures.

• Problem: when step 5 fails, steps 1-4 leave partial results with no undo.

Solved: per-step rollback actions, executed in reverse order with cryptographic receipts.

• Problem: "deploy to production" auto-executes with no human check.

Solved: approval gates with escalation chains, conditional auto-approval, and time-bounded decisions.

• Problem: "what happened at 3am that broke production?" requires log archaeology.

Solved: structured, queryable audit trail. "Show all workflows that touched the billing DB."

use agentic_workflow::{Workflow, StepNode, StepType, Edge, EdgeType};
use agentic_workflow::engine::DagEngine;

let mut engine = DagEngine::new();

// Define a deployment pipeline
let mut wf = Workflow::new("deploy-pipeline", "Build, test, approve, deploy");
let build = StepNode::new("Build", StepType::Command {
    command: "cargo".into(), args: vec!["build".into(), "--release".into()],
});
let test = StepNode::new("Test", StepType::Command {
    command: "cargo".into(), args: vec!["test".into()],
});
let approve = StepNode::new("Approve", StepType::ApprovalGate {
    approvers: vec!["lead@team.com".into()], timeout_ms: Some(3600_000),
});
let deploy = StepNode::new("Deploy", StepType::McpTool {
    sister: "connect".into(), tool: "deploy".into(),
    params: serde_json::json!({"target": "production"}),
});

let (bid, tid, aid, did) = (build.id.clone(), test.id.clone(), approve.id.clone(), deploy.id.clone());
wf.add_step(build); wf.add_step(test); wf.add_step(approve); wf.add_step(deploy);
wf.add_edge(Edge { from: bid, to: tid.clone(), edge_type: EdgeType::Sequence });
wf.add_edge(Edge { from: tid, to: aid.clone(), edge_type: EdgeType::Sequence });
wf.add_edge(Edge { from: aid, to: did, edge_type: EdgeType::Sequence });

// Validate and execute
engine.register_workflow(wf).unwrap();

Four steps. One DAG. Approval gate before production. Retry intelligence. Rollback on failure. Works with Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, or any MCP client.

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The 24 Capabilities

Six categories. Twenty-four capabilities. Every orchestration pattern that exists or will exist.

Core Engine (Capabilities 1-4)

| # | Capability | What it solves | |:--|:----------|:---------------| | 1 | Universal DAG Engine | Every coordination pattern in one graph -- linear, parallel, conditional, loops | | 2 | Execution Consciousness | Full execution awareness -- live status, progress, ETA, intervention | | 3 | Intelligent Scheduling | Context-aware cron -- skip holidays, respect service health, learn optimal times | | 4 | Trigger Omniscience | Universal triggers -- file, webhook, schedule, API, workflow output, custom |

Resilience (Capabilities 5-8)

| # | Capability | What it solves | |:--|:----------|:---------------| | 5 | Retry Intelligence | Per-failure-type retry -- exponential for rate limits, immediate for deadlocks | | 6 | Rollback Architecture | Per-step undo with verification -- reverse order, cryptographic receipts | | 7 | Circuit Breaker Intelligence | Workflow-aware breakers -- don't start step 1 if step 3's service is down | | 8 | Dead Letter Intelligence | Classify failures, auto-retry on recovery, surface actionable summaries |

Processing (Capabilities 9-11)

| # | Capability | What it solves | |:--|:----------|:---------------| | 9 | Batch Processing | Controlled parallelism, progress checkpoints, resume from interruption | | 10 | Stream Processing | Continuous data -- file watch, webhooks, polling -- with backpressure and windowing | | 11 | Fan-Out / Fan-In | "Query 5 APIs in parallel, wait for 3, merge results" as a first-class primitive |

Governance (Capabilities 12-14)

| # | Capability | What it solves | |:--|:----------|:---------------| | 12 | Approval Gates | Escalation chains, conditional auto-approve, time-bounded, delegation | | 13 | Audit Trail | Structured, queryable events -- who did what, when, to which resource | | 14 | Idempotency | Built-in deduplication -- never send duplicate emails or double-charge |

State (Capabilities 15-16)

| # | Capability | What it solves | |:--|:----------|:---------------| | 15 | State Machine Engine | First-class FSM -- Created → Paid → Shipped → Delivered with guard conditions | | 16 | Variable Scoping | Hierarchical scope -- workflow → branch → step → iteration, with type checking |

Intelligence (Capabilities 17-24)

| # | Capability | What it solves | |:--|:----------|:---------------| | 17 | Workflow Templates | Parameterized reusable patterns -- "deploy" template takes (app, host, env) | | 18 | Natural Language Workflow | "Every morning, check inventory and reorder" → executable DAG | | 19 | Execution Archaeology | Compare executions, detect anomalies, identify bottlenecks | | 20 | Predictive Execution | "How long? Will it succeed? How much will it cost?" from history | | 21 | Workflow Evolution | Health scoring, drift detection, optimization suggestions | | 22 | Dream State | Idle-time maintenance -- pre-check deps, validate configs, surface insights | | 23 | Composition Algebra | Workflow-of-workflows -- sequence, parallel, conditional operators on entire workflows | | 24 | Workflow Collective | Share workflow patterns across teams with privacy verification |

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Benchmarks

Rust core. In-memory engines. Real numbers from stress tests:

| Operation | Time | Scale | |:---|---:|:---| | DAG validate + topological sort | ** All stress tests measured on Apple ARM64, Rust 1.82, release profile. Every benchmark has a corresponding named test (stress_dag_1000_steps_linear_chain, stress_batch_10k_items, etc.).

Comparison with existing systems

| | Airflow | Temporal | GH Actions | Zapier | AgenticWorkflow | |:---|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:| | All coordination patterns | DAG only | Saga | DAG | Trigger-action | All | | Infrastructure required | Kubernetes | Server | Cloud | Cloud | None | | AI-native (MCP) | No | No | No | No | Yes | | Retry intelligence | Basic | Built-in | Basic | Basic | Per-failure-class | | Rollback | No | Saga | No | No | Per-step + verification | | Circuit breakers | No | No | No | No | Workflow-aware | | Approval gates | No | No | Env gates | No | Escalation chains | | Audit trail | Logs | Logs | Logs | Logs | Structured + queryable | | State machines | No | No | No | No | First-class | | Natural language WF | No | No | No | No | Yes | | Predictive execution | No | No | No | No | Yes |

---

Install

One-liner (desktop profile, backwards-compatible):

curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow | bash

Downloads pre-built awf and agentic-workflow-mcp binaries to ~/.local/bin/ and merges the MCP server into your Claude Desktop and Claude Code configs. If release artifacts are not available, the installer automatically falls back to cargo install --git source install.

Environment profiles (one command per environment):

# Desktop MCP clients (auto-merge Claude Desktop + Claude Code when detected)
curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow/desktop | bash

# Terminal-only (no desktop config writes)
curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow/terminal | bash

# Remote/server hosts (no desktop config writes)
curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow/server | bash

| Channel | Command | Result | |:---|:---|:---| | GitHub installer (official) | curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow \| bash | Installs release binaries; merges MCP config | | GitHub installer (desktop) | curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow/desktop \| bash | Explicit desktop profile | | GitHub installer (terminal) | curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow/terminal \| bash | Binaries only; no config writes | | GitHub installer (server) | curl -fsSL https://agentralabs.tech/install/workflow/server \| bash | Server-safe behavior | | crates.io (official) | cargo install agentic-workflow-cli agentic-workflow-mcp | Installs awf CLI and MCP server |

| Goal | Command | |:---|:---| | Just give me workflows | Run the one-liner above | | Rust developer | cargo install agentic-workflow-cli agentic-workflow-mcp |

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MCP Server

Any MCP-compatible client gets instant access to universal workflow orchestration. The agentic-workflow-mcp crate exposes the full engine over the Model Context Protocol (JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio).

cargo install agentic-workflow-mcp

Configure Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "agentic-workflow": {
      "command": "agentic-workflow-mcp",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

Configure VS Code / Cursor

Add to .vscode/settings.json:

{
  "mcp.servers": {
    "agentic-workflow": {
      "command": "agentic-workflow-mcp",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

What the LLM gets

| Category | Count | Examples | |:---|---:|:---| | Tools | 124 | workflow_create, workflow_run, workflow_validate, workflow_fsm_transition, workflow_approve_decide, workflow_predict_duration ... | | Resources | -- | Planned | | Prompts | -- | Planned |

Once connected, the LLM can create workflows, validate DAGs, execute pipelines, manage state machines, approve deployments, query audit trails, and predict execution outcomes -- all backed by the same .awf binary file.

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Quickstart

Create and run a workflow -- MCP tools

→ workflow_create { name: "daily-report", description: "Generate metrics" }
← { workflow_id: "wf-a1b2c3", steps: 0, status: "created" }

→ workflow_step_add { workflow_id: "wf-a1b2c3", name: "Query DB", type: "mcp_tool" }
← { step_id: "s-d4e5f6", position: 1 }

→ workflow_validate { workflow_id: "wf-a1b2c3" }
← { valid: true, steps: 3, edges: 2, warnings: [] }

→ workflow_run { workflow_id: "wf-a1b2c3" }
← { execution_id: "ex-g7h8i9", status: "running" }

→ workflow_progress { execution_id: "ex-g7h8i9" }
← { completed: 2, total: 3, percent: 66.7, eta_ms: 45000 }

State machine -- order lifecycle

→ workflow_fsm_create { name: "order", initial: "Created", states: [...], transitions: [...] }
← { fsm_id: "fsm-j0k1l2" }

→ workflow_fsm_transition { fsm_id: "fsm-j0k1l2", event: "pay" }
← { from: "Created", to: "Paid", timestamp: "..." }

→ workflow_fsm_transition { fsm_id: "fsm-j0k1l2", event: "ship" }
← { from: "Paid", to: "Shipped" }

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How It Works

AgenticWorkflow orchestrates every coordination pattern through six subsystems:

| Subsystem | Purpose | Key operations | |:---|:---|:---| | Engine | DAG execution, scheduling, triggers, batch, stream, fan-out, FSM | Create, validate, execute, pause, resume, cancel | | Resilience | Failure survival | Retry, rollback, circuit breaker, dead letter, idempotency | | Governance | Control and compliance | Approval gates, audit trail, variable scoping | | Template | Reusable patterns | Templates, natural language, composition algebra | | Intelligence | Learning from history | Archaeology, prediction, evolution, dream state | | Format | Persistent state | .awf binary file with BLAKE3 checksums |

.awf file format details

+-------------------------------------+
|  HEADER           16 bytes          |  AWFL magic . version . counts
+-------------------------------------+
|  WORKFLOW REGISTRY                  |  All workflow definitions
|  (type u8 | length u32 | JSON | BLAKE3)
+-------------------------------------+
|  TEMPLATE LIBRARY                   |  Stored templates
+-------------------------------------+
|  EXECUTION HISTORY                  |  Past execution records
+-------------------------------------+
|  SCHEDULE TABLE                     |  Active schedules
+-------------------------------------+
|  STATE MACHINE TABLE                |  FSM definitions + current states
+-------------------------------------+
|  TRIGGER INDEX                      |  Active triggers
+-------------------------------------+
|  AUDIT LOG                          |  Structured audit events
+-------------------------------------+
|  IDEMPOTENCY CACHE                  |  Deduplication keys
+-------------------------------------+
|  VARIABLE STORE                     |  Scoped variables
+-------------------------------------+

Each section independently BLAKE3-checksummed. Corruption in one section doesn't affect others. LZ4 compression available.

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Validation

| Suite | Tests | | |:---|---:|:---| | Type system + serde | 59 | All variants, serialization roundtrips | | Engine operations | 31 | DAG, FSM, batch, stream, fan-out, scheduler, trigger | | Resilience | 27 | Retry, rollback, circuit breaker, dead letter, idempotency | | Governance | 27 | Approval gates, audit trail, variable scoping | | Template + Intelligence | 31 | Templates, NL, composition, archaeology, prediction, evolution | | Edge cases | 28 | Boundary values, corruption detection, error paths | | Stress tests | 14 | 1K-10K scale with time budgets | | Persistence + execution | 39 | Store roundtrip, step execution, output propagation | | Concurrent access | 11 | Multi-execution, multi-scope, multi-FSM | | Inline unit tests | 14 | Core module self-tests | | Total | 281 | All passing |

One research paper:

• [Paper I: AgenticWorkflow -- universal orchestration engine (10 pages, 8 figures, 11 tables, real stress test data)](paper/paper-i-orchestration/agenticworkflow-paper.pdf)

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Repository Structure

agentic-workflow/
├── Cargo.toml                      # Workspace root
├── crates/
│   ├── agentic-workflow/            # Core library (types, engines, resilience, governance, intelligence)
│   ├── agentic-workflow-mcp/        # MCP server (124 tools, stdio transport)
│   ├── agentic-workflow-cli/        # CLI binary (awf)
│   └── agentic-workflow-ffi/

…

## Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [agentralabs](https://github.com/agentralabs)
- **Source:** [agentralabs/agentic-workflow](https://github.com/agentralabs/agentic-workflow)
- **License:** MIT
- **Homepage:** https://agentralabs.tech

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.