How Pipelab runs your work

The desktop app is made from an Electron shell, a Vue UI, and a local Node.js engine. The shell starts or resolves the CLI server, and the UI connects to the engine. In production, the server also serves the bundled UI.

Request paths

1. The Vue UI sends engine requests over the local WebSocket connection.
2. The Electron preload bridge exposes native operations such as file dialogs to the UI through IPC.
3. The Node engine owns plugin execution, file operations, and run history.

The standalone CLI can start the server with pipelab serve; its default address is 127.0.0.1:33753. Binding beyond loopback in production requires an authentication token. See the CLI reference.

Workflow execution

The Release workflow planner validates sources, producers, destinations, artifact compatibility, and dependencies before compiling task steps for the workflow runtime. Ready workflow steps can run concurrently when their dependencies allow it. The CLI can run a saved workflow with pipelab workflow run.

For implementation ownership, package boundaries, and contribution setup, see Contributor architecture.