Conductor is an open-source, durable workflow engine built at Netflix for orchestrating microservices, AI agents, and event-driven workflows at internet scale. Actively maintained by Orkes and a growing community.
npm install -g @conductor-oss/conductor-cli
conductor server startOpen http://localhost:8080 — your server is running with the built-in UI.
Run your first workflow:
# Create a workflow that calls an API and parses the response — no workers needed
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/conductor-oss/conductor/main/docs/quickstart/workflow.json -o workflow.json
conductor workflow create workflow.json
conductor workflow start -w hello_workflow --syncSee the Quickstart guide for the full walkthrough, including writing workers and replaying workflows.
Prefer Docker?
docker run -p 8080:8080 conductoross/conductor:latestAll CLI commands have equivalent cURL/API calls. See the Quickstart for details.
Conductor Skills are pre-built, production-ready workflow packages that give your AI agents superpowers — retrieval, web search, document processing, and more. Install a skill, wire it into your agent, and ship.
# Install the skills CLI
npm install -g @conductor-oss/conductor-skills
# List available skills
conductor-skills list
# Install a skill
conductor-skills install <skill-name>| Durable execution | Every step is persisted. Survive crashes, restarts, and network failures. At-least-once task delivery with configurable retries, timeouts, and compensation flows. |
| Deterministic workflows | JSON definitions separate orchestration from implementation — no side effects, no hidden state. Every run produces the same task graph. Replay any workflow months later. |
| AI agent orchestration | 14+ native LLM providers, MCP tool calling, function calling, human-in-the-loop approval, vector databases (Pinecone, pgvector, MongoDB Atlas) for RAG. |
| Dynamic at runtime | Dynamic forks, dynamic tasks, and dynamic sub-workflows — all resolved at runtime. LLMs can generate workflow definitions as JSON and Conductor executes them immediately. No compile/deploy cycle. |
| Full replayability | Restart from the beginning, rerun from any task, or retry just the failed step — on any workflow, at any time, indefinitely. |
| Internet scale | Battle-tested at Netflix, Tesla, LinkedIn, and JP Morgan. Scales horizontally to billions of workflow executions. |
| Polyglot workers | Write workers in Java, Python, Go, JavaScript, C#, Ruby, or Rust. Workers poll, execute, and report — run them anywhere. |
| Self-hosted, no lock-in | Apache 2.0 licensed. 8+ persistence backends, 6 message brokers. Runs anywhere Docker or a JVM runs. |
| Language | Repository | Install |
|---|---|---|
| ☕ Java | conductor-oss/java-sdk | Maven Central |
| 🐍 Python | conductor-oss/python-sdk | pip install conductor-python |
| 🟨 JavaScript | conductor-oss/javascript-sdk | npm install @io-orkes/conductor-javascript |
| 🐹 Go | conductor-oss/go-sdk | go get github.com/conductor-sdk/conductor-go |
| 🟣 C# | conductor-oss/csharp-sdk | dotnet add package conductor-csharp |
| 💎 Ruby | conductor-oss/ruby-sdk | gem install conductor_ruby |
| 🦀 Rust | conductor-oss/rust-sdk | (incubating) |
- Documentation — Architecture, guides, API reference, and cookbook recipes.
- Slack — Community discussions and support.
- Community Forum — Ask questions and share patterns.
| Backend | Configuration |
|---|---|
| Redis + ES7 (default) | config-redis.properties |
| Redis + OpenSearch | config-redis-os.properties |
| Postgres | config-postgres.properties |
| Postgres + ES7 | config-postgres-es7.properties |
| MySQL + ES7 | config-mysql.properties |
Requirements and instructions
Requirements: Docker Desktop, Java (JDK) 21+, Node 18 (for UI)
git clone https://github.com/conductor-oss/conductor
cd conductor
./gradlew build
# (optional) Build UI
# ./build_ui.sh
# Start local server
cd server
../gradlew bootRunSee the full build guide for details.
Is this the same as Netflix Conductor?
Yes. Conductor OSS is the continuation of the original Netflix Conductor repository after Netflix contributed the project to the open-source foundation.
Is this project actively maintained?
Yes. Orkes is the primary maintainer and offers an enterprise SaaS platform for Conductor across all major cloud providers.
Can Conductor scale to handle my workload?
Yes. Built at Netflix, battle-tested at internet scale. Conductor scales horizontally across multiple server instances to handle billions of workflow executions.
Is Orkes Conductor compatible with Conductor OSS?
100% compatible. Orkes Conductor is built on top of Conductor OSS with full API and workflow compatibility.
We welcome contributions from everyone!
- Report Issues: Open an issue on GitHub.
- Contribute code: Check out our Contribution Guide and good first issues.
- Improve docs: Help keep our documentation great.
See the Conductor OSS Roadmap. Want to participate? Reach out.
Conductor is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.