Dagu

Dagu is a lightweight workflow orchestration engine that runs as a single self-contained binary and provides a modern Web UI. Workflows are defined in a declarative YAML format and can execute local commands, SSH commands, and containerized steps with scheduling and retries.

Key Features

• Single-binary installation with zero required external dependencies; uses file-based storage for definitions, logs, and history
• Declarative YAML DSL for DAGs with scheduling (cron), timezones, conditional steps, retries, and repeat policies
• Built-in Web UI: visual DAG view, real-time monitoring, execution history, log search, and an integrated YAML editor
• Executors for shell commands, Docker containers, SSH remote execution, and HTTP steps
• Distributed execution: coordinator/worker model and built-in queueing to scale across machines
• Nested/sub-DAG support for reusable composition and inspectable sub-runs in the UI
• Integrations and platform features: GitHub Actions executor, API key management and RBAC, webhooks, email notifications
• Newer features include human-in-the-loop approvals and a Chat Executor for integrating LLMs into workflows

Use Cases

• Replace scattered cron jobs with a visual, auditable DAG system for server maintenance and operational scripts
• Orchestrate multi-step CI/maintenance workflows that mix local scripts, SSH calls, and containerized tasks
• Run distributed data-processing pipelines across multiple worker nodes with centralized monitoring and retries

Limitations and Considerations

• Secrets management is not provided as a full built-in secret store; references and integrations (KMS/Vault/OIDC) are discussed/tracked as planned features
• While Dagu supports distributed runs and queueing, very large cloud-native deployments may require external orchestration or custom scaling strategies

Dagu is designed for teams that want powerful orchestration with minimal operational overhead and straightforward local-first deployment. It emphasizes portability, simple YAML-based definitions, and an integrated UI for everyday workflow operations.