OpenWOP in 10 Minutes

The fastest possible path from "what is openwop?" to "I have a workflow running on my laptop." Zero vendor SDK / managed-service / framework setup. Just Node 20+ and a clone of openwop/openwop-examples — the reference hosts + runnable samples, extracted from this spec repo (2026-06).

This guide walks through:

1. Minute 0–2 — Start the in-memory reference host. 2. Minute 2–5 — Run a workflow via curl. 3. Minute 5–8 — Run the same workflow via the TypeScript SDK. 4. Minute 8–10 — Stream events live via SSE.

The general-audience QUICKSTART.md covers more (BYOK, fork, node packs, conformance) and assumes you already have a host running. This guide assumes you have nothing.

Prerequisites

node --version  # MUST be >= 20
git --version

That's it. No Docker, no cloud account, no API keys.

Minute 0–2 — Start the in-memory reference host

git clone https://github.com/openwop/openwop-examples.git
cd openwop-examples/examples/hosts/in-memory
npm install
npm start

Output:

[openwop-host-in-memory] listening on http://127.0.0.1:3737 (api key: openwop-inmem-dev-key, 16 fixtures loaded)

Leave this running. The host has no persistence — when you Ctrl-C it, every run is dropped. That's the point: it's a reference example, not a production host.

In a separate terminal, verify it works:

curl http://127.0.0.1:3737/.well-known/openwop | head -c 300

You should see a JSON capability advertisement.

Minute 2–5 — Run a workflow via curl

Discover

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:3737/.well-known/openwop | jq '{protocolVersion, implementation}'

{
  "protocolVersion": "1.0",
  "implementation": {
    "name": "openwop-host-in-memory",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "vendor": "openwop-spec (reference example)"
  }
}

Create a run

curl -s -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3737/v1/runs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer openwop-inmem-dev-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"workflowId":"conformance-noop"}'

{
  "runId": "run-3f...",
  "status": "pending",
  "workflowId": "conformance-noop",
  "startedAt": "2026-05-01T12:34:56.000Z"
}

Save the runId.

Get the snapshot

RUN_ID=run-3f...  # paste your runId here
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer openwop-inmem-dev-key" \
  http://127.0.0.1:3737/v1/runs/$RUN_ID

If you waited a moment, status is now completed.

You just ran an OpenWOP workflow. Three HTTP calls. No client library, no schema validation, no auth ceremony beyond a Bearer token.

Minute 5–8 — Run the same workflow via the TypeScript SDK

In a fresh terminal, create a quickstart project and install the published SDK from npm:

mkdir -p /tmp/openwop-quickstart && cd /tmp/openwop-quickstart
npm init -y > /dev/null
npm pkg set type=module
npm install @openwop/openwop

cat > quickstart.mjs <<'EOF'
import { OpenwopClient } from '@openwop/openwop';

const client = new OpenwopClient({
  baseUrl: 'http://127.0.0.1:3737',
  apiKey: 'openwop-inmem-dev-key',
});

const caps = await client.discover();
console.log('Server:', caps.implementation?.name);

const run = await client.createRun({ workflowId: 'conformance-noop' });
console.log('Created:', run.runId);

let snap;
do {
  await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 250));
  snap = await client.getRun(run.runId);
} while (!['completed', 'failed', 'cancelled'].includes(snap.status));
console.log('Final:', snap.status);
EOF

node quickstart.mjs

Note: to test an unpublished SDK checkout instead, clone openwop/openwop-sdks, run npm install && npm run build && npm link in sdk/typescript/, and replace the install step with npm link @openwop/openwop.

Output:

Server: openwop-host-in-memory
Created: run-...
Final: completed

The SDK is doing the same three calls under the hood, but you get type-checked clients (@openwop/openwop for TypeScript, openwop-client for Python, the Go SDK at github.com/openwop/openwop-sdks/go — all three live in openwop/openwop-sdks) and consistent error handling.

A simpler version that doesn't need the SDK at all is at examples/tiny-workflow/ — pure fetch.

Minute 8–10 — Stream events live via SSE

cd openwop-examples/examples/streaming-client
npm start

Output:

→ POST /v1/runs { workflowId: "conformance-noop" }
  runId: run-...
→ Streaming /v1/runs/run-.../events
  [0] run.started
  [1] node.started node=noop
  [2] node.completed node=noop
  [3] run.completed
✓ Stream closed after 4 events

The host's SSE stream replays the backlog on connect (so you see all 4 events even though the run was instant) and closes on the terminal event. That's how you build a live UI without polling.

For a longer demonstration, run a conformance-cancellable workflow with delayMs: 5000 and you can watch the events trickle in over 5 seconds:

OPENWOP_WORKFLOW=conformance-cancellable npm start

Then in another terminal, while the run is mid-flight, cancel it:

curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer openwop-inmem-dev-key" \
  http://127.0.0.1:3737/v1/runs/$RUN_ID/cancel

The streaming client will receive node.cancelled + run.cancelled and exit.

What you just learned

Where to go next

• QUICKSTART.md — comprehensive guide covering BYOK, fork, node packs, webhooks against any host.
• INTEROP-MATRIX.md — see which conformance scenarios pass against known OpenWOP-compatible hosts, including the in-memory and SQLite reference hosts.
• spec/v1/positioning.md — when to use openwop vs Temporal / Airflow / LangGraph / MCP.
• Build a node pack — spec/v1/node-packs.md walks through manifest authoring + signing.

Troubleshooting

If something else doesn't work, file an issue at <https://github.com/openwop/openwop/issues> — the in-memory host is supposed to "just work" for this guide.