openflow

name	openflow
description	Executes AI tasks with strict resource limits and progress tracking. Use when the user needs to search the web, explore large codebases, or check dependencies. Prevents runaway execution by enforcing timeouts and limiting searches, file reads, and recursion depth.
allowed-tools	Bash(openflow:*)

Controlled AI Task Execution with OpenFlow

The openflow command executes AI tasks with built-in resource limits and real-time progress tracking. A structured workflow prevents runaway execution by enforcing timeouts and limiting operations.

Prerequisites

openflow --version    # Verify installation

For setup details, see https://github.com/Done-0/openflow#readme

Core Workflow

1. List flows: openflow list — see available workflows
2. Inspect: openflow info <flow-name> — view flow details and limits
3. Execute: openflow run <flow-name> --input '{"key": "value"}' — run with parameters
4. Monitor: progress displayed in real-time with resource tracking
5. Complete: automatic limit enforcement prevents runaway execution

Available Flows

openflow list                              # List all flows
openflow list --category research          # Filter by category

search_web

Search the web with strict limits to prevent runaway searches. Uses DuckDuckGo Instant Answer API (free) or Brave Search API (set BRAVE_API_KEY env var for better results).

openflow run search_web --input '{"topic": "AI trends"}'

Use for: Research, competitive analysis, gathering information from the web

Limits: 60s max, 10 results hard limit, 12k tokens

Prevents: Runaway searches (real case: 234 searches, 45 minutes wasted)

explore_codebase

Explore codebases with file limits to prevent reading entire projects.

openflow run explore_codebase --input '{"query": "authentication logic", "path": "."}'

Use for: Understanding large codebases, finding relevant code, navigating projects

Limits: 45s max, 20 files maximum, 15k tokens

Prevents: Reading entire project and exhausting tokens

check_dependencies

Check dependencies with depth limits to prevent recursive analysis. Supports npm, pip, poetry, cargo, go, bundler.

openflow run check_dependencies --input '{"path": "."}'

Use for: Dependency audits, version conflict detection, understanding project dependencies

Limits: 30s max, 50 dependencies maximum, 8k tokens

Prevents: Recursively analyzing entire dependency tree

Commands

# Flow Management
openflow list                              # List available flows
openflow list --category <category>        # Filter by category (research, codebase, dependencies, testing)
openflow info <flow-name>                  # Show flow details, steps, and limits

# Execution
openflow run <flow-name> --input '{"key": "value"}'  # Execute flow with input
openflow run <flow-name> --input '...' --max-time 60  # Custom time limit
openflow run <flow-name> --input '...' --max-calls 30 # Custom tool call limit
openflow run <flow-name> --input '...' --max-tokens 15000  # Custom token limit

# Information
openflow --version                         # Show version
openflow --help                            # Show help

Resource Limits

Each flow has default limits that can be customized:

Option	Description	Default
--max-time	Maximum execution time (seconds)	Flow-specific
--max-calls	Maximum tool calls allowed	Flow-specific
--max-tokens	Maximum token usage	Flow-specific

# Example with custom limits
openflow run search_web \
  --input '{"topic": "AI trends"}' \
  --max-time 60 \
  --max-calls 10 \
  --max-tokens 15000

Output Format

OpenFlow displays progress in the terminal:

[OpenFlow] Execution Plan
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Steps:
  1. Search information   (est. 10s)
  2. Analyze sources      (est. 15s)
  3. Compare findings     (est. 12s)
  4. Generate report      (est. 8s)

Estimated time: 45s
Resource limits: max 10 searches, 60s timeout
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[OpenFlow] Progress
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✓ Search information  10.2s (used 10/10 searches)
✓ Analyze sources     12.1s
⟳ Compare findings    9.8s [running...]
○ Generate report

Progress: ████████████░░░░░░░░ 60%
Elapsed: 32.1s / Est. 45s | Searches: 10/10
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[OpenFlow] Completed
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✓ All steps completed

Execution stats:
  Time: 39.4s (5.6s faster than estimated)
  Searches: 10/10 (100%)
  Token usage: 8.2k/12k (68%)

✓ Task completed within resource limits
✓ Prevented runaway execution
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Common Workflows

Search the Web

openflow run search_web --input '{"topic": "competitor analysis"}'

Explore Large Codebase

openflow run explore_codebase --input '{"query": "payment processing"}'

Check Dependencies

openflow run check_dependencies --input '{"file": "package.json"}'

Generate Tests

openflow run generate_tests --input '{"file": "src/api.py"}'

Command Chaining

Commands can be chained with &&:

openflow list && openflow info search_web
openflow run search_web --input '{"topic": "AI trends"}' && openflow list

Tips

1. Use for high-risk tasks — OpenFlow prevents runaway execution
2. Check flow details first — openflow info <flow> shows steps and limits
3. Set custom limits — Adjust --max-time, --max-calls, --max-tokens as needed
4. Monitor progress — Real-time updates show what's happening
5. Automatic cleanup — OpenFlow executes synchronously and cleans up automatically

Troubleshooting

• Flow not found? openflow list to see available flows
• Input format error? Use single quotes around JSON: --input '{"key": "value"}'
• Run diagnostics: openflow --version and check installation

Cleanup

OpenFlow executes synchronously and cleans up automatically. No manual cleanup needed.