# Install cromwell with Homebrew

Workflow Execution Engine using Workflow Description Language. Version 92 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:cromwell
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install cromwell
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:cromwell
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 92
- **Source summary:** Workflow Execution Engine using Workflow Description Language
- **Homepage:** <https://github.com/broadinstitute/cromwell>
- **Repository:** <https://github.com/broadinstitute/cromwell>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- cromwell (alias)
- womtool (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 92
## Project history and usage

Cromwell is Broad Institute's open-source workflow management system for bioinformatics and other scientific workflows. It is closely associated with WDL, ships with the womtool helper, and can run workflows locally, as a server, or against pluggable execution backends.

### Project history

The repository was created in 2015, and early releases began that year. The official documentation says Cromwell started life as a WDL engine, with WDL draft-2 as its first language, and later added WDL 1.0 support while continuing to track WDL development.

Cromwell's architecture centers on workflow execution backends. The official backend documentation describes included support for Local, HPC schedulers such as SGE, LSF, HTCondor, and Slurm, Google Cloud through Google Batch, GA4GH TES, and AWS Batch beta support.

### Adoption history

Broad's README points many users toward Terra, a managed bioinformatics platform with built-in Cromwell support, while self-managed users can download a JAR or Docker image. This split shaped Cromwell's adoption: package managers provide local CLI access, but large production usage often happens through managed or institution-maintained deployments.

### How it is used

Users run Cromwell to execute WDL workflows and use womtool for WDL validation and workflow object model tasks. Common deployments range from five-minute local tutorials to persistent server mode, cloud batch backends, and HPC scheduler integrations.

### Why package nerds care

For package maintainers, Cromwell is a JVM scientific-workflow package whose command-line distribution wraps a larger service-oriented engine. It matters because reproducible workflow tooling often needs both local executables for validation and stable release artifacts for institutional compute environments.

### Timeline

- 2015: Repository created and 0.5 release published.
- 2015: Early 0.x releases established Cromwell as a WDL workflow engine.
- 2020s: Documentation emphasizes Terra-managed usage, self-managed JAR or Docker deployments, WDL support, and modular backends.

### Related projects

- WDL and OpenWDL are the workflow language context for Cromwell.
- Terra is a managed platform with built-in Cromwell support.
- GA4GH TES, Google Batch, AWS Batch, and HPC schedulers are execution-backend contexts.

### Sources

- <https://github.com/broadinstitute/cromwell#readme>
- <https://cromwell.readthedocs.io/en/stable/>
- <https://cromwell.readthedocs.io/en/stable/LanguageSupport/>
- <https://cromwell.readthedocs.io/en/stable/backends/Backends/>
- <https://github.com/broadinstitute/cromwell/releases/tag/0.5>


## Security Notes

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

- **Geiger risk:** green / low
- narrow executable package without higher-risk signals


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/cromwell.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/cromwell.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- cross-ecosystem install command graph