Quick start

Run Operion and PostgreSQL with Docker Compose, publish a workflow and start it through a webhook

This guide runs Operion next to PostgreSQL, creates a workflow for the tenant acme, publishes it and starts it with a webhook call.

Run Operion

Save this as compose.yaml:

compose.yaml

services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: operion
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: operion
      POSTGRES_DB: operion
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U operion -d operion"]
      interval: 2s
      timeout: 2s
      retries: 30

  operion:
    image: ghcr.io/operion-flow/operion:0.1
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgres://operion:operion@postgres:5432/operion?sslmode=disable
      OPERION_API_TOKEN: dev-token
    ports:
      - "9091:9091"
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy

Start both:

docker compose up

The image runs operion serve, which applies its database migrations on start and listens on port 9091. Every API call needs the token from OPERION_API_TOKEN as a bearer token.

Create a workflow

This workflow starts when someone posts to the webhook path /greet and builds a greeting from the request body. Save it as workflow.json:

workflow.json

{
  "name": "greet",
  "description": "Greets whoever calls the webhook",
  "nodes": [
    {"id": "trigger", "name": "trigger", "type": "trigger:webhook", "category": "trigger", "config": {"webhook_path": "/greet"}},
    {"id": "greet", "name": "greet", "type": "transform", "category": "action", "config": {"expression": "hello {{.node_results.trigger.body.name}}"}}
  ],
  "connections": [
    {"id": "c1", "source_port": "trigger:success", "target_port": "greet:main"}
  ]
}

Create it as a draft for the tenant acme:

curl -s -X POST localhost:9091/workflows \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer dev-token' \
  -H 'X-Tenant-Id: acme' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d @workflow.json

The answer is the stored workflow with its new id and "status": "draft".

Publish it

Publishing validates the graph and makes the workflow live. Replace <workflow-id> with the id from the previous answer:

curl -s -X POST localhost:9091/workflows/<workflow-id>/publish \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer dev-token' \
  -H 'X-Tenant-Id: acme'

A graph Operion cannot run is refused with a 422 that lists every problem found.

Start it

Webhooks need no token. The path carries the tenant:

curl -s -X POST localhost:9091/webhooks/acme/greet \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name": "Ana"}'

{"executions": ["<execution-id>"]}

Read the execution:

curl -s localhost:9091/executions/<execution-id> \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer dev-token' \
  -H 'X-Tenant-Id: acme'

It has "status": "completed", and node_results.greet.data.result is "hello Ana".

Next steps

Run a workflow locally without a database while you write it.
Learn how workflows and templates fit together.
Start workflows from catalog events on Kafka or on a schedule.
Add your own node types as remote nodes.