OWS workflows

A Restura workflow is an Open Workflow Specification (OWS) JSON document. The old linear workflow and proprietary Flow canvas formats are unavailable: Restura neither imports nor executes them.

What is stored

For a filesystem-backed OpenCollection project, each workflow is three files:

workflows/<workflow-id>/workflow.ows.json
workflows/<workflow-id>/bindings.restura.json
workflows/<workflow-id>/layout.restura.json

workflow.ows.json is the executable document. Bindings map OWS task paths to saved OpenCollection requests without copying credentials or network configuration. Layout is non-semantic editor state and may be rebuilt.

Safe supported profile

Restura currently runs:

• do, set, and wait tasks;
• task and workflow timeout/cancellation; and
• an HTTP call bound to a saved HTTP request.

The call uses the sentinel restura://saved-request; the actual URL, headers, authentication, and body come only from the saved request. This keeps every run on Restura’s normal SSRF, header, secret, approval, timeout, and cancellation path.

fork, for, switch, try, event and process tasks, OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, MCP, A2A, inline secrets/authentication, schedules, extensions, and arbitrary scripts are rejected rather than partially executed.

Authoring and Git

Open a collection’s Workflows sidebar tab to edit OWS JSON, typed bindings, and an SDK graph projection. The displayed start/end are visual-only. Bindings use a percent-encoded logical request path—for example Users/Get%20user—so moving or renaming a request fails closed instead of rebinding silently. In CI, run a portable workspace workflow with restura workflow run <workspace> <workflow-id>.

Desktop filesystem projects watch the workspace root; OWS artifacts therefore show up in the existing Git status, diff, stage, and commit views. The CLI discovers and validates the same artifacts and executes the safe HTTP profile through its existing HTTP executor.

Removed behavior

Legacy Restura workflow envelopes, the proprietary DAG/canvas nodes, QuickJS transforms/templates/displays, and custom protocol exchanges are not supported.

Related

• Collections — saved requests that OWS bindings may reference.
• CLI — headless collection and OWS workspace execution.
• Environments — variables used by saved requests.