Workflow automation · API / SDK

Kestra API

Kestra

Access workflow orchestration through documented API resources.

Official documentation Download development spec

KESTRA / DEVELOPER FIELD GUIDE

Choose an interface. Define a verifiable result.

Company or project context, ten technical entry points and a practical analysis of every reference.

2026-10-08 · Integration not tested

Company / project overview

Original summary of official company or project statements; use the source for the full original page.

Kestra · About
Company and project	Kestra develops a declarative orchestration platform for data pipelines, infrastructure, applications and AI workflows.
Engineering focus	Its About page emphasizes quality, collaboration, user feedback and transparency.
Edition choice	The API reference distinguishes open-source and Enterprise editions; match deployment capabilities before implementation.

Complete official About page ↗

About reference — TA analysis
Audience	Buyers, partners and product owners shortlisting an AI provider.
Our assessment	Use positioning and company history for initial fit. Obtain project-specific deployment, support and commercial terms separately.

Official sources reviewed; no live API, inference or benchmark was run. Expected results are proposed internal contracts.

Top 10 technical entry points

Ten documented technical entry points selected by developer task; not ten separate SDKs or an official ranking.

Choose by the work you need to complete
Interface	Purpose and audience
01 · Flow definitionAPI / SDK / developer guide	Define an orchestration unit and its tasks.Workflow authors
02 · ExecutionsAPI / SDK / developer guide	Start and observe individual flow runs.Orchestration integrators
03 · Workflow inputsAPI / SDK / developer guide	Declare and validate flow parameters.Contract designers
04 · Workflow outputsAPI / SDK / developer guide	Pass results between tasks and expose flow outputs.Pipeline developers
05 · Webhook triggerAPI / SDK / developer guide	Initiate flows through HTTP-triggered events.Event integration teams
06 · Error handlingAPI / SDK / developer guide	Define failure handling within workflows.Reliability owners
07 · Task retriesAPI / SDK / developer guide	Retry transient failures with declared policies.Integration engineers
08 · Task timeoutAPI / SDK / developer guide	Limit task run duration.Operations teams
09 · Flow concurrencyAPI / SDK / developer guide	Limit simultaneous executions.Capacity planners
10 · Task plugin developmentAPI / SDK / developer guide	Implement custom task behavior.Plugin developers

Reference analysis

Capabilities summarize official documentation. Constraints and proposed tests are our engineering assessment.

API / SDK / developer guide

Flow definition

Flow definition · TA
Target audience	Workflow authors
Documented capability	Define an orchestration unit and its tasks.
Input → output	Flow definition → versioned executable workflow.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Valid syntax does not prove referenced plugins or services work.
Our suggested validation	Validate definition and resolve every task dependency.

Official reference · Flow definition ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Executions

Executions · TA
Target audience	Orchestration integrators
Documented capability	Start and observe individual flow runs.
Input → output	Flow and inputs → execution ID and lifecycle state.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Created execution is not terminal success.
Our suggested validation	Correlate task states with the execution terminal outcome.

Official reference · Executions ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Workflow inputs

Workflow inputs · TA
Target audience	Contract designers
Documented capability	Declare and validate flow parameters.
Input → output	Provided values → typed workflow inputs.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Missing required values and wrong types must not become silent defaults.
Our suggested validation	Test absent, malformed and boundary input values.

Official reference · Workflow inputs ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Workflow outputs

Workflow outputs · TA
Target audience	Pipeline developers
Documented capability	Pass results between tasks and expose flow outputs.
Input → output	Task results → referenced output values.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	A task may fail before producing an output.
Our suggested validation	Verify missing output handling and type consistency.

Official reference · Workflow outputs ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Webhook trigger

Webhook trigger · TA
Target audience	Event integration teams
Documented capability	Initiate flows through HTTP-triggered events.
Input → output	Authorized webhook event → execution.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Retries from an event sender can create duplicate business actions.
Our suggested validation	Define deduplication keys and validate duplicate-event behavior.

Official reference · Webhook trigger ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Error handling

Error handling · TA
Target audience	Reliability owners
Documented capability	Define failure handling within workflows.
Input → output	Task failure → configured error path.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Successful cleanup is not proof the original work succeeded.
Our suggested validation	Inject a failure and preserve the original failed outcome.

Official reference · Error handling ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Task retries

Task retries · TA
Target audience	Integration engineers
Documented capability	Retry transient failures with declared policies.
Input → output	Failed attempt → bounded subsequent attempt.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Side effects require idempotency or reconciliation.
Our suggested validation	Verify attempt limits and no duplicate external mutation.

Official reference · Task retries ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Task timeout

Task timeout · TA
Target audience	Operations teams
Documented capability	Limit task run duration.
Input → output	Overrunning task → configured timeout behavior.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Timing out orchestration may not reverse external side effects.
Our suggested validation	Check cancellation behavior and reconcile downstream state.

Official reference · Task timeout ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Flow concurrency

Flow concurrency · TA
Target audience	Capacity planners
Documented capability	Limit simultaneous executions.
Input → output	Incoming executions → configured queue/limit handling.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Concurrency settings affect wait times and downstream capacity.
Our suggested validation	Submit a bounded burst and verify declared overflow policy.

Official reference · Flow concurrency ↗

API / SDK / developer guide

Task plugin development

Task plugin development · TA
Target audience	Plugin developers
Documented capability	Implement custom task behavior.
Input → output	Task inputs and context → task outputs.
Execution environment	Pinned Kestra server, plugins and configured task runner
Our decision constraint	Plugin API and server compatibility must be pinned together.
Our suggested validation	Test valid input, exception and cancellation behavior.

Official reference · Task plugin development ↗

API reference

API reference · Supporting reference analysis
TA	API integration teams
Our validation advice	Use the reference matching the selected edition, server version and authentication model.

Official reference · API reference ↗

04 / INPUT · EXPECTED OUTPUT · ACCEPTANCE

Expected results before implementation

Proposed execution receipt; not a native Kestra API response. No workflow, task, webhook or external service was executed.

Illustrative contract · no API call or model execution · not measured provider output

Successful execution

Expected behavior — illustrative, not executed
Input	Valid inputs and all required tasks finish.
Expected result	ok with terminal execution state and declared outputs.
Acceptance	Confirm every required dependency completed and outputs exist.

Empty workload

Expected behavior — illustrative, not executed
Input	Valid input list contains zero eligible items.
Expected result	ok with processed_count: 0 if the flow defines empty work as valid.
Acceptance	Do not create placeholder external actions.

Queued execution

Expected behavior — illustrative, not executed
Input	Flow concurrency capacity is occupied.
Expected result	pending/queued under configured policy, not completed.
Acceptance	Expose wait state and enforce agreed maximum wait.

Task fails after retries

Expected behavior — illustrative, not executed
Input	Transient failure persists beyond the retry limit.
Expected result	error with task and execution identifiers; preserve failed state.
Acceptance	Verify retry count and reconcile any prior external side effects.

Map the expected result to your application

Map the actual SDK or service response into this proposed internal contract after integration. All IDs and values below are invented examples; no credentials or live requests are included.

Expected output JSON — illustrative, not measured · KestraAPI-expected-results.json

{
  "schema_version": "1.0.0",
  "example": true,
  "provider": "Kestra",
  "status": "ok",
  "input_id": "sample-001",
  "data": {
    "execution_id": "example-execution",
    "flow_id": "example-flow",
    "flow_revision": 1,
    "execution_state": "SUCCESS",
    "outputs": {
      "processed_count": 3
    }
  },
  "error": null,
  "verification": "illustrative-only;not-provider-response"
}

Download specification, example and acceptance plan

Engineering handoff — our proposed contract and gates
Result interpretation	Successful transport or execution does not establish model accuracy. Preserve valid empty results separately from operational failure.
Reproducibility	Record model, runtime, configuration and input identifiers; agree quality and latency criteria before representative tests. No measured performance is claimed.
Operation boundary	Proposed execution receipt; not a native Kestra API response. No workflow, task, webhook or external service was executed.

Development assessment

Evidence extraction pipeline

Development concept · integration not tested

Provider capabilities above are based on official documentation or repositories. The proposed product, inputs, deliverable and acceptance criteria below are our development assessment.

Small prototype

Test one documented operation with a small real sample after access is confirmed. This is a development judgment, not a delivery estimate.

Proposed inputs: A sample event, authorized systems and one defined workflow transition.
Proposed deliverable: A visible job state and audit trail for a single workflow.
Acceptance criterion: A retried event must not create duplicate work; an unavailable upstream must remain visibly pending or failed.
Dependencies: Runtime access, workflow permissions and a reviewed notification or write destination.

Development sequence

Confirm access to Kestra API, license and the exact supported version.
Prepare the sample above and implement one documented operation for “Evidence extraction pipeline”.
Normalize the result with source, time and explicit error state; keep the provider response for review.
Run the acceptance criterion before estimating rollout effort or committing a customer deliverable.

How to validate demand

Record product views, documentation clicks, specification downloads and contextual hub clicks. These are event counts, not unique people or completed integrations.

This feasibility assessment uses implementation conditions. No traffic-based rank or delivery-time promise is assigned.

Kestra API

Choose an interface. Define a verifiable result.

Company / project overview

Top 10 technical entry points

Reference analysis

API reference

Expected results before implementation

Successful execution

Empty workload

Queued execution

Task fails after retries

Map the expected result to your application

Evidence extraction pipeline

Development sequence

How to validate demand

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