Setting Up Orkes Conductor

You can get started with Orkes Conductor using one of the following options, depending on your use case:

• Developer Edition: A browser-based sandbox for quick prototyping and testing.
• Orkes Cloud: A fully managed, enterprise-grade Conductor deployment.
• Local setup with Docker: Run Orkes Conductor locally using Docker for development and testing.

Developer Edition

For quick testing and experimentation, use the Developer Edition. This free, browser-based sandbox lets you start building and running workflows instantly, with no installation required.

Orkes Cloud

Orkes Cloud is the fully managed, enterprise version of Orkes Conductor. It provides dedicated Conductor instances and can be deployed in one of the following ways:

• Orkes-hosted, where Orkes manages the infrastructure.
• Customer-hosted, where Orkes Cloud runs within your cloud environment, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.

Orkes Cloud includes enterprise capabilities such as security, scalability, observability, and operational management. For details, see https://orkes.io/cloud.

Local setup with Docker

For enterprise customers to conduct local development and testing, Orkes provides Docker containers via the orkesio organization on DockerHub. These images allow you to run Orkes Conductor locally using Docker and require an Orkes Cloud subscription.

note

The orkes-conductor-standalone container is ideal for local development and testing. It includes the full Orkes stack, with a persistent store, server, and system workers. To download it, you'll need an authorization token from the Orkes team.

To set up Conductor clusters locally:

macOS, Linux

Prerequisites

• Docker must be installed.
• Orkes Cloud subscription.
• Authorization token from Orkes team (Contact your Orkes representative).

To download and run the container:

1. Log in to DockerHub using your Orkes access credentials. When prompted for a password, use the access token provided by Orkes.
2. Download and run the latest container build​​:

export orkes_access_key=<ACCESS_KEY_PROVIDED_BY_ORKES>
echo $orkes_access_key | docker login --username orkesdocker --password-stdin

# Create volumes for persistent stores
docker volume create postgres
docker volume create redis

# Download and start the container
docker run -i -p 8080:8080 -p 3000:5000 --mount source=redis,target=/redis \
--mount source=postgres,target=/pgdata orkesio/orkes-conductor-standalone:latest

The UI can be accessed at http://localhost:3000 and API docs at http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui/.

Windows

Prerequisites

• Orkes Cloud subscription.
• Authorization token from Orkes team (Contact your Orkes representative).

Step 1: Install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on Windows

The Windows devices must have Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) installed.

To install WSL:

1. Open PowerShell or Windows Command Prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and selecting Run as administrator.
2. Enter the following command and restart your computer once completed:

wsl --install

If you encounter issues, refer to Microsoft's WSL installation guide.

Step 2: Install Docker Desktop for Windows

Orkes containers are distributed as Docker containers and require a Docker runtime with WSL support.

To install Docker Desktop for Windows:

1. Follow the instructions on Docker to download and install Docker Desktop. Make sure to download the correct binary for your CPU type.
2. When prompted, select WSL.
3. Restart your computer.

Ensure that the Docker is running automatically after the restart. If not, search for Docker in your Applications and start it.

Step 3: Download and run container

1. Open PowerShell in administrator mode by right-clicking and selecting Run as administrator.
2. Run the following PowerShell commands individually, or save the commands into a script file (e.g., orkes-enterprise.ps1) and run the script.

# Set the Orkes access key
$env:orkes_access_key = "<ACCESS KEY PROVIDED BY ORKES>"

# Log in to Docker
$env:orkes_access_key | docker login --username orkesdocker --password-stdin

# Create volumes for persistent stores
docker volume create postgres
docker volume create redis

# Download and start the container
docker run -i -p 8080:8080 -p 3000:5000 --mount source=redis,target=/redis --mount source=postgres,target=/pgdata orkesio/orkes-conductor-standalone:latest

Once the container starts, the Orkes Conductor welcome screen appears on the terminal. The UI can be accessed at http://localhost:3000 and API docs at http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui/.