Show HN: StepKit, an open and cross-platform durable execution standard
36 pointsby tonyhb2 days ago13 comments
  • goodoldneon2 days ago
    Inngest engineer here! For a little extra context, the `@stepkit/core` package is basically just an API for defining a workflow. There isn't much to it because we don't want to be overly opinionated on backend implementations!

    The `@stepkit/sdk-tools` package is a set of tools for building your own StepKit SDK. The vast vast majority of stuff in there is optional, but highly valuable if you want to avoid reinventing the wheel when building your own SDK.

  • itajenglish17 hours ago
    The API gods have struck gold again! I love this new approach. Really looking forward to seeing how extensions extend the core SDK functionality, especially those created by the OSS community. I also looking forward to seeing how the invoking of Inngest workflows directly in your business logic and getting the result synchronously will materialize. This will be a huge unlock in handling error prone workflows.
  • 19 hours ago
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  • imsh4yya day ago
    I've had early access to StepKit and this kind of sane, explicit API with pluggable backends feels like the right direction. Kudos to the team here!
  • homanpa day ago
    Long time inngest user, this looks very interesting.
  • rebeccaqian2 days ago
    This is really neat!! Looks easy to set up. Super convenient to have a SDK to deploy AI workflows. Love the automatic retries and suspend/resume
  • ThierryAbaleaa day ago
    Durable execution feels underrated. It lines up almost exactly with a Process Manager: track state, pick the next step, orchestrate calls, no hand-rolled state machines or persistence glue. You can hack a demo in a few hours, but getting the guarantees right in production is a totally different game, so seeing an OSS implementation from people who have actually done this before is interesting
  • shcallawaya day ago
    Wow, this is great. I have been using Inngest for over a year now and really like the APIs you guys have created for defining step functions / event handlers. I'm very glad to see that this API is now open-source so that it can be adopted more broadly!
  • dimitropoulosa day ago
    with all the hype around durable execution... what makes it difference from job queuing solutions like BullMQ or Agenda.js that rely on DLQ on top of Redis or Mongo? is it just a DX thing?
    • wittydevelopera day ago
      You can see durable execution as a combination of persistent state and queues (simplified example). With regular queues, the state is spread across many places from messages, runtime and external storages where the primary value is the reliability of the message processing and simple error management. Durable brings more advanced error management and end to end reliability with persistent state.
  • louismalingrey2 days ago
    Damn that looks cool congrats guys!
    • notrab2 days ago
      Agreed, it looks pretty nice!
  • ptsia day ago
    Looks cool. How does this compare to Vercel Workflow Kit or Cloudflare Workflows?
    • goodoldneona day ago
      Vercel Workflow Kit takes a very different approach. Lack of step IDs (which makes them worse at handling code changes), compilation step, more opinionated about backends ("worlds", as they call them). Vercel Workflow Kit has magic that admittedly makes it a little easier to get started, but that magic causes problems when you want a mature product.

      Cloudflare Workflows are actually complementary to StepKit! We'll soon release an adapter that lets you define StepKit workflows that run as Cloudflare Workflows. We have a POC in `packages/cloudflare` in our repo

  • arthberman21 hours ago
    Interesting, will dig this!
  • dot_louisa day ago
    Looks neat, how to you guys compare to upstash workflows ?
    • goodoldneona day ago
      We'll release an Upstash Workflows adapter soon! StepKit is ultimately just an in-code API that lets you define workflows in a backend agnostic way. We want you to define workflows that can run in Upstash, Inngest, Cloudflare... really anywhere!