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Announcing Stepflow: An Open Protocol and Runtime for GenAI Workflows

· 4 min read
Ben Chambers
Ben Chambers
Co-creator of Stepflow
Nate McCall
Nate McCall
Co-creator of Stepflow

We're excited to announce the initial release of Stepflow, an open-source protocol and runtime designed to make building, executing, and scaling GenAI workflows simple, secure, and portable. Whether you're prototyping locally or deploying to production, Stepflow provides the foundation for reliable AI workflow execution.

Why Stepflow?​

The rapid evolution of GenAI over the past couple of years has created an explosion of tools, models, and APIs. While this diversity has powered some serious innovation, it also creates challenges: How do you build workflows that can leverage different AI services? How do you ensure your local prototypes will scale in production? How do you maintain security and isolation when executing untrusted code? How do you parallelise your workflows to maximise resource utilization?

Stepflow was designed to fill these gaps for AI workflows, and address these challenges with a simple yet powerful approach: define your workflows in YAML or JSON, and let the runtime handle the complexity of execution, scaling, and security.

Key Features in This First Release​

Reliable Workflow Execution for Everyone​

Stepflow focuses on three core users: workflow creators, workflow frameworks, and workflow platforms. Workflow creators can use more components, run in more places, and scale more reliably. Workflow frameworks can leverage all the existing components without the need to deal with scale and durability. Workflow platforms can run workflows from any supported framework. Specific features in this release include:

  • Parallel execution: Steps run concurrently when possible, maximizing performance
  • Error handling: Distinguish between business logic failures and system errors
  • State management: Built-in support for durable execution with SQLite backend

Secure Component Isolation​

GenAI in the modern enterprise requires workflow isolation for security and resource control. Stepflow builds this in at the core:

  • Process isolation: Each component runs in its own sandboxed process or node
  • JSON-RPC protocol: Clean separation between workflow runtime and components
  • Resource controls: Strict environment and resource management for each step

Open and Extensible​

Workflows are defined in JSON or YAML and submitted via a wire protocol. This means that you are in complete control of all aspects of runtime execution:

  • Language agnostic: Write components in Python, TypeScript, or any language
  • Well defined protocol and routing rules: Supports bidirectional communication with local or remote processes
  • Plugin architecture: Easy integration with existing tools and services
  • MCP support: Use Model Context Protocol tools as workflow components
  • Lang Chain component Support: Use Lang Chain tools as workflow components
  • Built-in components: OpenAI integration, file operations, and more out of the box
  • User Defined Functions: Take control of your workflow via providing your own UDFs

Geting Started​

Our comprehensive getting started guide and usage examples should give you everything you need to get going with your own workflows. Specific examples include:

What's Next?​

This is just the beginning! Our roadmap includes:

  • Serverless component execution: Run components in environments like AWS Fargate and Beam.cloud
  • Flow-generating agent loops: Agent generates flows rather than single tool invocations.
  • Integration with AI tools: Provide a runtime for popular frameworks like Langflow, Flowise, and n8n
  • Richer component library: Pre-built components for common tasks
  • Tracing and debugging: Enhanced tools for tracing workflow execution and debugging issues

Join the Community​

Stepflow is open source and we welcome contributions! Whether you want to:

  • Build new components
  • Improve documentation
  • Report bugs or suggest features
  • Share your workflows

Visit our GitHub repository to get involved.

Acknowledgments​

Special thanks to all our early contributors and testers who helped shape Stepflow. Your feedback and contributions have been invaluable in getting us to this first release.

Happy workflow building!

The Stepflow Team