KitWork — The Lightweight Workflow Engine for your Services

KitWork is a lightweight, high-performance workflow engine that helps developers automate, orchestrate, and connect services with clean, predictable workflows.

It works perfectly for cron jobs, backend automation, browser automation, scraping, serverless scripting, and microservice orchestration — whether on the cloud or fully self-hosted.

n8n + cron + Puppeteer + Airflow — but self-hosted, <20MB, no Docker, no Node.js.

KitWork treats automation as a structured system: easy to define, effortless to maintain, and powerful enough to scale.

🚀 Get Started

1. Run from source

git clone https://github.com/kitwork/kitwork.git
cd kitwork
go run .

2. Or download a prebuilt binary

Linux x64

curl -L https://github.com/kitwork/kitwork/releases/latest/download/kitwork-linux-amd64 -o kitwork
chmod +x kitwork
./kitwork

Windows

Download kitwork-win.exe from the Releases page and run:

./kitwork-win.exe

macOS (Intel)

curl -L https://github.com/kitwork/kitwork/releases/latest/download/kitwork-darwin-amd64 -o kitwork
chmod +x kitwork
./kitwork

3. Create your first workflow

Create a file named hello.work:

name: "Hello World"

schedules:
  - every: 5s

work:
  - log: "Hello from KitWork!"

Start KitWork — it automatically discovers and runs .work files.

🔧 Key Features

⚡ Lightweight & Fast

Single binary (~12–18 MB depending on platform)
No dependencies
Drop → run
Built with Go: fast, portable, reliable

Perfect for servers, VPS, containers, or tiny self-hosted setups.

📄 `.work` — a human-first workflow format

KitWork uses a YAML-like declarative language:

readable
simple
zero boilerplate
easy to debug

🌀 Flexible Orchestration

Supports:

Cron schedules
Webhooks
API calls
Conditional branches
Chained workflows
Retry logic
Error/success handlers
Secrets system

🧩 Browser Automation & Scripts

First-class JavaScript & browser automation:

V8 — secure JS runtime
Chromedp — headless browser

Perfect for:

scraping
bot flows
autofill
browser-based checks
automation pipelines

🔗 HTTP, Fetching, JSON & API Tasks

Easily call APIs, transform JSON, pass data between workflow steps.

🗄 SQL & Data Interaction (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite)

Query or modify your database directly inside .work files.

Example:

- sql:
    as: users
    select:
      - "email"
      - "username"
    from: user
    where:
      is_active: true
    limit: 30

🧑‍💻 What You Can Build With KitWork

Automated reports, emails, reminders
Multi-step backend workflows
Scraping & data pipelines
Browser bots (Chromedp)
Serverless-style functions (self-hosted)
Structured cron task replacements
Microservice orchestration
Internal automation for teams
Mini API endpoints
Self-hosted automation platforms

Perfect for indie hackers, solo devs, SaaS builders, and automation-heavy teams.

🧪 Example: Fetch BTC/USDT & Send to Telegram

name: "Get BTC to Telegram"

schedules:
  - every: 5s

work:
  - fetch:
      name: "Fetch BTC Price"
      url: "https://api.binance.com/api/v3/ticker/price?symbol=BTCUSDT"
      method: "GET"
      as: btc
      timeout: 1000
      error:
        - log: Failed to fetch BTC

  - log: BTC/USDT is currently {{ btc.price | dollar }}

  - fetch:
      name: "Send to Telegram"
      url: "https://api.telegram.org/bot{{ secret.telegram.key }}/sendMessage"
      method: "POST"
      headers:
        content-type: "application/json"
      body:
        chat_id: "-5077473015"
        text: "KitWork BOT\nBTC/USDT: {{ btc.price | dollar }}"
      error:
        - log: Failed to send Telegram message

error:
  - log: An error occurred

success:
  - log: BTC/USDT successfully sent to Telegram

🏗 Architecture Overview

KitWork is powered by:

Golang — performance & simplicity
Fiber (optional) — fast HTTP API
V8go — isolated JavaScript runtime
Chromedp — browser automation
Declarative .work format — structured and predictable

Works as:

Workflow engine
Task runner
Script executor
Automation hub

🎯 Why KitWork Exists

Existing automation platforms are often:

heavy
cloud-locked
expensive
complicated
hard to self-host

KitWork provides a lightweight, self-hosted, developer-first alternative.

Small scripts → structured workflows → production-ready automation.

🧩 Who Uses KitWork?

Indie developers launching SaaS
Teams building internal automation
DevOps replacing messy cron jobs
Browser automation creators
Data engineering enthusiasts
Self-hosting users
Developers who love simplicity

📜 License

Released under Apache 2.0 License. Free for personal, commercial, and enterprise use.

❤️ Made for Developers

“Automation should be powerful, predictable, and fun to build.”

🧡 Author

Huỳnh Nhân Quốc— Dreamy Indie-stack Developer KitWork is open-source to help anyone automate, build, and scale workflows effortlessly.

Support development → Sponsor KitWork

🌟 Tagline

Automate workflows effortlessly with KitWork — fast, lightweight, flexible everywhere.

2025.12.10

kitwork