Workflow authoring tools

Orch8 workflows have one portable JSON contract. You can write that contract directly, build it with an SDK, generate a draft with an LLM, or let an MCP client author it. Every path converges on the same schema, lint, preflight, and offline contract tests.

Editor and API contracts

Configure your editor with the recursive sequence JSON Schema. The versioned OpenAPI document is the source for HTTP clients and exact request and response types.

1https://orch8.io/contracts/sequence.schema.json
2https://orch8.io/contracts/openapi.json

New definitions include schema_version and can be upgraded explicitly with orch8 sequence upgrade-format. Stored older definitions continue to decode through compatibility defaults.

Local Studio

The current-main local path is persistent by default: initialize a project, then edit while the Studio hot-reloads and keeps state in.orch8/dev.db.

1orch8 init my-project
2orch8 dev my-project
3
4# Fast, in-memory CI smoke test
5orch8 dev my-project --no-server --skip-timers --once

Generate and repair with an LLM

orch8 generate uses an OpenAI-compatible provider, validates the draft, and runs a bounded repair loop. Review the resulting JSON and contract tests before applying it.

1orch8 generate "triage support tickets with human escalation"
2orch8 sequence preflight --file sequence.json
3orch8 test run sequence.contracts.json

Claude and Cursor through MCP

Point an MCP client at POST /api/v1/mcp. In addition to run operations, current main exposes sequence creation, lint, and preflight tools so an assistant can repair a workflow against engine evidence instead of guessing the DSL.

1{
2  "mcpServers": {
3    "orch8": {
4      "url": "http://localhost:8080/api/v1/mcp",
5      "headers": {
6        "x-api-key": "<ORCH8_API_KEY>",
7        "x-tenant-id": "demo"
8      }
9    }
10  }
11}

Code-first builders

The TypeScript, Python, and Go SDKs expose builders for all eleven block types. Builders produce ordinary sequence JSON, so definitions remain portable and can be reviewed or deployed without the originating SDK. Start with the SDK guide.

GitHub Actions and release gates

The reusable action runs format validation, lint, preflight, semantic diff, offline contract tests, and optional canary evidence. It is the shortest path from a reviewed sequence file to a guarded deployment.

1- uses: orch8-io/engine@main
2  with:
3    sequence: sequences/checkout.json
4    contracts: sequences/checkout.contracts.json

1curl -fsSL https://orch8.io/start.sh | sh