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Quick Start

Use the following to deploy a local Flow system using Docker.

Prerequisites​

Docker​

To get started, you will need to ensure you have Docker installed. This can be on a server or Docker Desktop, either one will work.

Flow CLI​

You will also need to have the Flow CLI installed.

Deploy​

Clone the Flow repo from GitHub and cd flow.

From the flow cloned directory, run docker compose -p flow up. This will start Postgres, MinIO, and the Flow server:

[+] Running 3/0
 ⠿ Container flow-postgres-1  Created                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
 ⠿ Container flow-minio-1     Created                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
 ⠿ Container flow-backend-1   Created                                                                                                                                                                         0.0s
Attaching to flow-backend-1, flow-minio-1, flow-postgres-1
flow-postgres-1  | selecting dynamic shared memory implementation ... posix
flow-postgres-1  | selecting default max_connections ... 100
flow-postgres-1  | selecting default shared_buffers ... 128MB
flow-postgres-1  | selecting default time zone ... UTC
flow-postgres-1  | creating configuration files ... ok
flow-minio-1     | Formatting 1st pool, 1 set(s), 1 drives per set.
flow-postgres-1  | running bootstrap script ... ok
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=info msg="starting flow server" address=":7080"
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=debug msg="loaded authenticator token"
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=info msg="registered service" type=flow.services.info.v1
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=info msg="registered service" type=flow.services.workflows.v1
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=info msg="registered service" type=flow.services.accounts.v1
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=debug msg="waiting for services start"
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=debug msg="starting service flow.services.info.v1"
flow-backend-1   | time="2022-07-12T06:19:27Z" level=debug msg="starting service flow.services.accounts.v1"
flow-minio-1     | Copyright: 2015-2022 MinIO, Inc.
flow-minio-1     | License: GNU AGPLv3 <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html>
flow-minio-1     | Version: RELEASE.2022-07-06T20-29-49Z (go1.18.3 linux/amd64)
flow-minio-1     |
flow-minio-1     | Status:         1 Online, 0 Offline.
flow-minio-1     | Console: http://172.19.0.2:9001 http://127.0.0.1:9001
flow-minio-1     | Documentation: https://docs.min.io

Login​

You can now login using the Flow CLI using the default password of flow as shown in the log output above:

fctl login
Username: admin
Password:
login successful
note

If InitialAdminPassword is not specified in the config a random password will be generated and output in the startup initial startup logs.

Your First Workflow​

You can now queue a workflow using the Flow CLI:

fctl workflows queue -n hello-world -t dev.ehazlett.flow.example

Use the fctl workflows list command to see workflows:

fctl workflows list
ID                                     NAME          TYPE                        STATUS      CREATED         PRIORITY    DURATION
104d8db7-f87e-468a-90ea-95db38158beb   hello-world   dev.ehazlett.flow.example   PENDING     6 seconds ago   NORMAL

Deploy the Processor​

We will now deploy the example processor to process the queued workflow.

Generate Service Token​

Before deploying the processor, we need to generate a service token. A service token allows the processor to communicate with the Flow workflow API.

fctl accounts generate-service-token
960674e702a73649b6a1e44073846d5bcab0ab296e963dbd50a86aef1b9e338d

Launch the Processor​

We can now deploy the processor. In another terminal window, run the following:

docker run \
    -ti \
    --net=flow_default \
    --rm \
    ehazlett/flow-workflow-example:latest \
        -D -a backend:7080 -t <service-token-from-above>

You should see the processor handle the workflow and output similar to the following:

INFO[0000] flow processor dev.ehazlett.flow.example running on 6d4560fba8da
DEBU[0000] starting workflow handler
DEBU[0020] workflow event: workflow:<id:"573434c5-c0af-4d1c-83a2-a0497956f672" type:"dev.ehazlett.flow.example" name:"hello-world" namespace:"18adba00-d1de-445d-ba49-653566d2ef5b" created_at:<seconds:1656542038 nanos:430393723 > updated_at:<seconds:1656542038 nanos:431075844 > >
INFO[0020] processed workflow 573434c5-c0af-4d1c-83a2-a0497956f672

Success!​

Congratulations! You have successfully deployed Flow and created your first workflow. Continue on with Concepts to learn more about the Flow features.