abstractflow 0.3.14

Gateway-first visual workflow authoring for AbstractFramework

AbstractFlow

Diagram-based, durable AI workflows for Python.

AbstractFlow is part of the AbstractFramework ecosystem. The editor is Gateway-first: AbstractFlow talks to AbstractGateway for discovery, persistence, runs, ledgers, artifacts, and media. Gateway owns the Runtime/Core deployment stack.

It provides:

• A small programmatic API (Flow, FlowRunner) for building and running flows in Python.
• A portable workflow format (VisualFlow JSON) + helpers to execute it from any host (abstractflow.visual).
• A Gateway-first visual editor app in web/ (React frontend + /api/gateway/* proxy).

Project status: Pre-alpha (pyproject.toml: Development Status :: 2 - Pre-Alpha). Expect breaking changes.

Evidence (code): abstractflow/runner.py, abstractflow/visual/executor.py, abstractflow/cli.py, web/backend/routes/ws.py.

Diagram (how it fits together)

flowchart LR
  UI[Visual editor UI<br/>npx @abstractframework/flow] <-->|/api/gateway/*| GW[AbstractGateway<br/>discovery/runs/ledger/artifacts/bundles/media]
  GW --> RT[AbstractRuntime Runtime]
  RT --> AC[AbstractCore providers/models/tools]

  HOST[Any host process<br/>CLI / server / notebook] --> VF[VisualFlow models<br/>abstractflow/visual/models.py]
  HOST --> RUN[create_visual_runner / execute_visual_flow<br/>abstractflow/visual/executor.py]
  RUN -. optional local compatibility .-> RT
  RT --> STORES[(Run/Ledger/Artifacts stores)]

Docs

Published documentation: https://www.lpalbou.info/AbstractFlow/

• Getting started: docs/getting-started.md
• API (high-level): docs/api.md
• Architecture: docs/architecture.md
• FAQ: docs/faq.md
• VisualFlow JSON format: docs/visualflow.md
• CLI: docs/cli.md
• Visual editor: docs/web-editor.md
• Docs index: docs/README.md

Installation

pip install abstractflow

Requirements: Python 3.10+ (pyproject.toml: requires-python).

Optional extras (declared in pyproject.toml):

• Host profiles for local programmatic/VisualFlow execution compatibility (Flow, FlowRunner, execute_visual_flow, workflow bundles): pip install "abstractflow[apple]" or pip install "abstractflow[gpu]"
• Full host profiles:
  • Apple-capable: pip install "abstractflow[apple]"
  • GPU-capable: pip install "abstractflow[gpu]"
• abstractflow[apple] and abstractflow[gpu] pull the matching abstractgateway[...] host profile and Visual Agent support. Flow no longer names AbstractRuntime or abstractcore directly in these profiles; Gateway owns that deployment stack. AbstractFlow 0.3.14 expects Gateway >=0.2.19 for the current media/catalog/residency contracts.
• Agent nodes only, without the host profile: pip install "abstractflow[agent]"
• Documentation site tools: pip install "abstractflow[docs]"

Quickstart (programmatic)

# Requires: `abstractflow[apple]` or `abstractflow[gpu]`
from abstractflow import Flow, FlowRunner

flow = Flow("linear")
flow.add_node("double", lambda x: x * 2, input_key="value", output_key="doubled")
flow.add_node("add_ten", lambda x: x + 10, input_key="doubled", output_key="final")
flow.add_edge("double", "add_ten")
flow.set_entry("double")

print(FlowRunner(flow).run({"value": 5}))
# {"success": True, "result": 20}

Quickstart (execute a VisualFlow JSON)

import json
from abstractflow.visual import VisualFlow, execute_visual_flow

# Requires: `abstractflow[apple]` or `abstractflow[gpu]`
with open("my-flow.json", "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    vf = VisualFlow.model_validate(json.load(f))

print(execute_visual_flow(vf, {"prompt": "Hello"}, flows={vf.id: vf}))

If your flow uses subflows, load all referenced *.json into the flows={...} mapping (see docs/getting-started.md).

Visual editor (Gateway-first)

The visual editor talks to AbstractGateway. The Flow server keeps the Gateway bearer token server-side while proxying browser requests.

# Terminal 1: Gateway
pip install "abstractgateway[http]" abstractflow
export ABSTRACTGATEWAY_AUTH_TOKEN=dev-token
abstractgateway serve --port 8080

# Terminal 2: editor UI (static server + /api/gateway proxy)
export ABSTRACTGATEWAY_AUTH_TOKEN=dev-token
npx @abstractframework/flow --gateway-url http://127.0.0.1:8080

Open:

• UI: http://localhost:3003
• Gateway capabilities: http://localhost:8080/api/gateway/discovery/capabilities

Media nodes use Gateway as the catalog and execution source. Generate Image, Edit Image/Image-to-Image, Generate Voice, Generate Music, Transcribe Audio, and Listen Voice expose Gateway Media controls populated from catalog routes such as /api/gateway/vision/models, /api/gateway/vision/provider_models, /api/gateway/voice/voices, /api/gateway/audio/speech/models, /api/gateway/audio/transcriptions/models, and /api/gateway/audio/music/{providers,models}. When Gateway exposes common.readiness, Flow uses it as a conservative surface-readiness overlay while still resolving concrete calls from endpoint descriptors. Generated images, voice, and music are artifacts; the Run modal renders previews/players from Gateway artifact content while leaving raw ledger JSON available for debugging.

The abstractflow serve/FastAPI host is a Gateway proxy by default. Its old local /api/flows, /api/ws, and /api/runs compatibility routes are available only when ABSTRACTFLOW_ENABLE_LOCAL_RUNTIME=1 is set. See docs/web-editor.md and docs/architecture.md.

CLI (WorkflowBundle .flow)

abstractflow bundle pack web/flows/ac-echo.json --out /tmp/ac-echo.flow
abstractflow bundle inspect /tmp/ac-echo.flow
abstractflow bundle unpack /tmp/ac-echo.flow --dir /tmp/ac-echo

See docs/cli.md and abstractflow/cli.py.

Related projects

• AbstractFramework: https://github.com/lpalbou/AbstractFramework
• AbstractRuntime: https://github.com/lpalbou/abstractruntime
• AbstractCore: https://github.com/lpalbou/abstractcore
• AbstractAgent (optional): https://github.com/lpalbou/AbstractAgent

Repo policies

• Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
• Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md
• Security: SECURITY.md
• Acknowledgments: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md
• License: LICENSE