Install ecflow-ui with Homebrew, apt

Project links

• Homepage

Commands and aliases

• ecflow_client
• ecflow_ui
• ecflow_ui.x

Project history

ECMWF's ecFlow documentation says ecFlow is a client/server workflow package for running many programs with dependencies on each other and on time, in a controlled environment with failure tolerance and restart capabilities. It is used at ECMWF to run all operational suites across a range of platforms.

The history documented by ECMWF starts with SMS, the Supervisor Monitoring Scheduler, which ECMWF used for almost three decades. SMS let scientists, analysts, and operators design, submit, and monitor jobs in Research and Operations, and was also used by many organizations outside ECMWF member states.

ecFlow 4 superseded SMS as a complete object-oriented rewrite using modern standardized components. The proprietary CDP scripting language used by SMS was replaced by Python. Development of ecFlow 4 later stopped, support continued, and ecFlow 5 replaced it.

The ecFlow repository was created on GitHub in August 2020, but the documentation and copyright history show an older ECMWF project line. The current documentation is for ecFlow 5.16.0 and lists ecflow_client, ecflow_ui, ecflow_server, and the Python API as the main components.

Adoption history

ecFlow's adoption is strongest in operational forecasting and scientific production environments where workflows are long-running, dependency-heavy, and monitored by teams. ECMWF's own documentation frames it as production infrastructure rather than a general-purpose desktop scheduler.

The package split is important: Homebrew's ecflow-ui package includes ecflow_client and ecflow_ui executables, giving workstation users a way to inspect and control ecFlow suites without necessarily packaging the full server deployment in the same way.

How it is used

ecFlow runs a server that receives requests from clients over TCP/IP. Clients include ecflow_client, ecflow_ui, scripts, and the Python API; suite jobs communicate status and events back through child commands embedded in scripts.

ecFlowUI is the Qt-based graphical client used to monitor and visualize the node-tree hierarchy. The CLI and Python API are used for suite definition, automation, and communication with the server.

Why package nerds care

ecflow-ui matters to package nerds because it is a UI/client package carved out of a larger scheduler ecosystem. That is a classic operational packaging problem: users may need local client tools and a GUI even when servers live elsewhere.

It also represents a lineage change in scientific operations tooling: SMS to ecFlow 4 to ecFlow 5, CDP to Python, and a move toward open GitHub-hosted ECMWF software with documented maturity status.

Timeline

• 2009: ecFlow documentation copyright range begins.
• 2011: ECMWF newsletter article introduces ecFlow.
• 2020: ECMWF ecFlow GitHub repository created.
• 2024: ecFlow 5.12 and 5.13 release series visible in GitHub releases.
• 2026: ecFlow 5.16.0 released and documented on Read the Docs.

Related projects

• SMS, the Supervisor Monitoring Scheduler, is ecFlow's direct predecessor.
• ecflow_client, ecflow_server, ecflow_ui, and the Python ecflow module are the main components of the same system.
• The documentation explicitly notes that ecFlow is a scheduler and not a queueing system such as NQS, SGE, LoadLeveler, or PBS, though it can submit jobs to queueing systems.

Sources

• https://github.com/ecmwf/ecflow
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ecmwf/ecflow/develop/README.md
• https://ecflow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
• https://ecflow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/overview.html
• https://ecflow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_sources/overview.rst.txt
• https://github.com/ecmwf/ecflow/releases
• https://api.github.com/repos/ecmwf/ecflow