What is Flowdrome
Flowdrome is a workflow automation platform — in the family of n8n, Zapier and Power Automate — with one defining difference: a finished workflow is a program, not a row in somebody’s queue. Every workflow can be compiled into a single standalone executable and deployed to machines you control.
A -drome is a place where things run: velodrome, aerodrome. Flowdrome is where workflows run.
The three pieces
| Piece | What it is | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | The visual editor: canvas, node library, live testing, single-step debugger, run history. Embedded in the Nucleus. | Your browser |
| Nucleus | The control plane: workflow registry, credentials vault, users & roles, host fleet, deployments, the approvals inbox. It manages everything and executes nothing. | One server (port 48170) |
| Hosts | The data plane: machines that execute workflows. A host runs deployed workflow apps, keeps a run ledger, reports resource telemetry, and dials home to the Nucleus. | As many machines as you like (port 48150) |
The split matters operationally: hosts keep executing if the Nucleus goes down, and management traffic never shares a process with workflow traffic.
The lifecycle
- Build a workflow visually in Studio — 71 nodes, typed ports, live validation, and
{{ }}expressions in any string field. - Test it from the editor against real services. Every run records the whole data envelope on every wire; you can single-step, inspect any node’s exact input and output, and retry a failed run from the node that broke.
- Compile & deploy. The compiler emits a self-contained app (run from source with Bun, or a single compiled executable). Deploying pushes it to a host in your fleet; real triggers — HTTP, schedules, Telegram, WebSocket, file events — take over.
What’s in the box
- 71 nodes — triggers, flow control (if/switch/merge/loop/try/wait/approval), list tools, data shaping, SQL (Postgres/MySQL), S3, Redis, Mongo, FTP/FTPS, IMAP, RSS, CSV, crypto, email, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Google Sheets/Docs/Drive, Gmail, Notion, HubSpot, Outlook, and AI nodes (chat, classify, and a full agent with pluggable tools and memory). See the node reference — it is generated from the node registry itself.
- A credentials vault with OAuth2 connect flows (Google, Microsoft, Notion, HubSpot, and a generic provider). Deployed apps lease secret values at run start; nothing is baked into artifacts.
- Human-in-the-loop approvals — a workflow pauses at an approval gate until someone decides, and every pending gate across the fleet lands in one inbox.
- Observability — whole-envelope run data, per-node timings, bottleneck stats, host run ledgers and resource telemetry.
- Error handling — try frames, error-trigger recovery lanes, and stop-and-error.
A note on names
Flowdrome’s engine carries its codename, niner, in technical surfaces: environment variables
use the NINER_ prefix, artifacts are named niner-host, and the workflow document format is
niner.workflow.v1. Commands in these docs are verbatim — what you see is what runs.
Where next
- Install Flowdrome — Docker, the live ISO appliance, a bare executable, or from source.
- Your first workflow — a Telegram echo bot in five minutes.
- Node reference — all 71 nodes, generated from the registry.