Installation | Community | Quick Start

Dagu

A powerful, self-contained Cron alternative with a clean Web UI and a declarative YAML-based workflow definition. Dagu simplifies complex job dependencies and scheduling with minimal overhead.

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Highlights

• Simple Installation: Single binary, no dependencies
• Intuitive Web UI: Visualize, monitor, and control workflows
• YAML-based: Define workflows in simple YAML files
• Built-in Executors: Support for Docker, HTTP, SSH, and more
• Zero Config: No database required, works out of the box

Features

• Web UI & CLI
• Web API Interface
• Powerful DAG definition in YAML format:
  • Code snippets, parameters, environment variables
  • Command substitution, piping, conditional logic
  • Redirection of stdout and stderr
  • Lifecycle hooks (on failure, on exit, etc.)
  • Repeating tasks, automatic/manual retry
  • Run sub workflows
• Handy built-in executors:
  • Docker containers
  • HTTP requests
  • Email sending
  • JSON query with jq
  • SSH remote commands
• Remote Dagu node management
• Email notification
• Scheduling with Cron expressions

Community

• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussion: GitHub Discussions
• Chat: Discord

Web UI

DAG Details

Real-time status, logs, and configuration for each DAG. Toggle graph orientation from the top-right corner.

DAGs

View all DAGs in one place with live status updates.

Search

Search across all DAG definitions.

Execution History

Review past DAG executions and logs at a glance.

Log Viewer

Examine detailed step-level logs and outputs.

Installation

Dagu can be installed in multiple ways, such as using Homebrew or downloading a single binary from GitHub releases.

Via Bash script

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dagu-org/dagu/main/scripts/installer.sh | bash

Via GitHub Releases Page

Download the latest binary from the Releases page and place it in your $PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin).

Via Homebrew (macOS)

brew install dagu-org/brew/dagu

Upgrade to the latest version:

brew upgrade dagu-org/brew/dagu

Via Docker

docker run \
--rm \
-p 8080:8080 \
-v $HOME/.config/dagu/dags:/home/dagu/.config/dagu/dags \
-v $HOME/.local/share/dagu:/home/dagu/.local/share/dagu \
-e DAGU_TZ=`ls -l /etc/localtime | awk -F'/zoneinfo/' '{print $2}'` \
ghcr.io/dagu-org/dagu:latest dagu start-all

Note: The environment variable DAGU_TZ is the timezone for the scheduler and server. You can set it to your local timezone (e.g. America/New_York).

See Environment variables to configure those default directories.

Quick Start Guide

1. Launch the Web UI

Start the server and scheduler with the command dagu start-all and browse to http://127.0.0.1:8080 to explore the Web UI.

2. Create a New DAG

Navigate to the DAG List page by clicking the menu in the left panel of the Web UI. Then create a DAG by clicking the NEW button at the top of the page. Enter example in the dialog.

Note: DAG (YAML) files will be placed in ~/.config/dagu/dags by default. See Configuration Options for more details.

3. Edit the DAG

Go to the SPEC Tab and hit the Edit button. Copy & Paste the following example and click the Save button.

Example:

schedule: "* * * * *" # Run the DAG every minute
params:
  - NAME: "Dagu"
steps:
  - name: Hello world
    command: echo Hello $NAME
  - name: Done
    command: echo Done!
    depends:
      - Hello world

4. Execute the DAG

You can execute the example by pressing the Start button. You can see "Hello Dagu" in the log page in the Web UI.

CLI

# Runs the DAG
dagu start <file>

# Runs the DAG with named parameters
dagu start <file> [-- <key>=<value> ...]

# Runs the DAG with positional parameters
dagu start <file> [-- value1 value2 ...]

# Displays the current status of the DAG
dagu status <file>

# Re-runs the specified DAG run
dagu retry --req=<request-id> <file>

# Stops the DAG execution
dagu stop <file>

# Restarts the current running DAG
dagu restart <file>

# Dry-runs the DAG
dagu dry <file> [-- <key>=<value> ...]

# Launches both the web UI server and scheduler process
dagu start-all [--host=<host>] [--port=<port>] [--dags=<path to directory>]

# Launches the Dagu web UI server
dagu server [--host=<host>] [--port=<port>] [--dags=<path to directory>]

# Starts the scheduler process
dagu scheduler [--dags=<path to directory>]

# Shows the current binary version
dagu version

Remote Node Management

Dagu supports managing multiple Dagu servers from a single UI through its remote node feature. This allows you to:

• Monitor and manage DAGs across different environments (dev, staging, prod)
• Access multiple Dagu instances from a centralized UI
• Switch between nodes easily through the UI dropdown

See Remote Node Configuration for more details.

Configuration

Create config.yaml in $HOME/.config/dagu/:

remoteNodes:
  - name: "prod"
    apiBaseUrl: "https://prod.example.com/api/v1"
  - name: "staging"
    apiBaseUrl: "https://staging.example.com/api/v1"

Documentation

• Installation Instructions
• ️Quick Start Guide
• Command Line Interface
• Web User Interface
• Writing DAG
  • Minimal DAG Definition
  • Running Arbitrary Code Snippets
  • Environment Variables
  • Parameters
  • Command Substitution
  • Conditional Logic
  • Environment Variables with Standard Output
  • Redirecting Stdout and Stderr
  • Lifecycle Hooks
  • Repeating Task
  • Running Sub-workflow
  • All Available Fields for a DAG
  • All Available Fields for a Step
• Example DAGs
  • Hello World
  • Conditional Steps
  • File Output
  • Passing Output to Next Step
  • Running a Container Image
  • Making HTTP Requests
  • JSON Processing
  • Email
• Configurations
• Remote Node
• Scheduler
• Docker Compose
• REST API Documentation

Example DAG

Minimal DAG Definition

A DAG with two steps:

params:
  - NAME: "Dagu"
steps:
  - name: Hello world
    command: echo Hello $NAME
  - name: Done
    command: echo Done!
    depends:
      - Hello world

Using a pipe:

steps:
  - name: step 1
    command: echo hello world | xargs echo

Specifying a shell:

steps:
  - name: step 1
    command: echo hello world | xargs echo
    shell: bash

Note: The default shell is $SHELL or sh.

Complex DAG Definition

A typical data pipeline for DevOps/Data Engineering scenarios:

The YAML code below represents this DAG:

# Environment variables used throughout the pipeline
env:
  - DATA_DIR: /data
  - SCRIPT_DIR: /scripts
  - LOG_DIR: /log
  # ... other variables can be added here

# Handlers to manage errors and cleanup after execution
handlerOn:
  failure:
    command: "echo error"
  exit:
    command: "echo clean up"

# The schedule for the DAG execution in cron format
# This schedule runs the DAG daily at 12:00 AM
schedule: "0 0 * * *"

steps:
  # Step 1: Pull the latest data from a data source
  - name: pull_data
    command: "sh"
    script: |
      echo `date '+%Y-%m-%d'`
    output: DATE

  # Step 2: Cleanse and prepare the data
  - name: cleanse_data
    command: echo cleansing ${DATA_DIR}/${DATE}.csv
    depends:
      - pull_data

  # Step 3: Transform the data
  - name: transform_data
    command: echo transforming ${DATA_DIR}/${DATE}_clean.csv
    depends:
      - cleanse_data

  # Parallel Step 1: Load the data into a database
  - name: load_data
    command: echo loading ${DATA_DIR}/${DATE}_transformed.csv
    depends:
      - transform_data

  # Parallel Step 2: Generate a statistical report
  - name: generate_report
    command: echo generating report ${DATA_DIR}/${DATE}_transformed.csv
    depends:
      - transform_data

  # Step 4: Run some analytics
  - name: run_analytics
    command: echo running analytics ${DATA_DIR}/${DATE}_transformed.csv
    depends:
      - load_data

  # Step 5: Send an email report
  - name: send_report
    command: echo sending email ${DATA_DIR}/${DATE}_analytics.csv
    depends:
      - run_analytics
      - generate_report

  # Step 6: Cleanup temporary files
  - name: cleanup
    command: echo removing ${DATE}*.csv
    depends:
      - send_report

Running as a daemon

The easiest way to make sure the process is always running on your system is to create the script below and execute it every minute using cron (you don't need root account in this way):

#!/bin/bash
process="dagu start-all"
command="/usr/bin/dagu start-all"

if ps ax | grep -v grep | grep "$process" > /dev/null
then
    exit
else
    $command &
fi

exit

Motivation

Legacy systems often have complex and implicit dependencies between jobs. When there are hundreds of cron jobs on a server, it can be difficult to keep track of these dependencies and to determine which job to rerun if one fails. It can also be a hassle to SSH into a server to view logs and manually rerun shell scripts one by one. Dagu aims to solve these problems by allowing you to explicitly visualize and manage pipeline dependencies as a DAG, and by providing a web UI for checking dependencies, execution status, and logs and for rerunning or stopping jobs with a simple mouse click.

Dagu addresses these pain points by providing a user-friendly solution for explicitly defining and visualizing workflows. With its intuitive web UI, Dagu simplifies the management of workflows, enabling users to easily check dependencies, monitor execution status, view logs, and control job execution with just a few clicks.

Why Not Use an Existing DAG Scheduler Like Airflow?

There are many existing tools such as Airflow, but many of these require you to write code in a programming language like Python to define your DAG. For systems that have been in operation for a long time, there may already be complex jobs with hundreds of thousands of lines of code written in languages like Perl or Shell Script. Adding another layer of complexity on top of these codes can reduce maintainability. Dagu was designed to be easy to use, self-contained, and require no coding, making it ideal for small projects.

How It Works

Dagu is a single command line tool that uses the local file system to store data, so no database management system or cloud service is required. DAGs are defined in a declarative YAML format, and existing programs can be used without modification.

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Feel free to contribute in any way you want! Share ideas, questions, submit issues, and create pull requests. Check out our Contribution Guide for help getting started.

We welcome any and all contributions!

License

This project is licensed under the GNU GPLv3.