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Nextflow

INFRA · APIS
Velocity6.3

Workflow orchestration engine for scalable and reproducible data pipelines

nextflow.io ↗

Nextflow just made AI agents a task type, alongside processes and containers.

workflow-orchestrationbioinformaticsai-agentscloud-executorslanguage-toolingseqera-platform
◆Current state
Nextflow ships on two tracks — dated edge releases carrying new work and 25.10.x/26.04.x stable lines taking backports — and the split is visible in every window: the edge builds run to dozens of commits while the stable patches are often plugin bumps alone. The current edge, 26.08.0-edge, introduces an agent primitive that makes AI agents first-class tasks, on top of steady work hardening the v2 config parser and type system. Cloud-executor plumbing, particularly for Seqera's own scheduler, is the other constant.
◆Where it's heading
Two arcs run in parallel. One is language maturity: the v2 parser, record types, typed outputs and the formatter have absorbed fix after fix across every release here, which is what a language does before it declares a syntax stable. The other is consolidation around Seqera — nf-tower folded into nf-seqera at 1.0.0, scheduler run identifiers propagate to Platform, and per-user CPU caps and secret references now cross that boundary. The agent primitive is the newest and least settled direction, arriving in edge rather than a stable line.
◆Prediction
The agent primitive lands in an edge build, so the near-term question is whether it survives into a stable line unchanged or is reshaped first; the 26.04.x and 25.10.x branches show no sign of it yet. Expect the next edge releases to iterate on its interface while the stable branches continue taking parser and executor backports.

◆Recent moves

  1. 27d ago

    AI agents become first-class Nextflow tasks

    ⚡ SPARK

    Buried in a commit list of roughly seventy entries is an agent primitive that makes AI agents a first-class task type. It sits alongside the run of parser fixes, proxy authentication support, a CLI/runtime separation and a security-audit sweep that characterise the rest of this edge build.

    View source ↗
  2. 1mo ago

    Google Cloud's newest machine families reach the 25.10 line

    A three-line stable patch backporting v2 config parser fixes and support for the latest Google Cloud machine families. Typical of the 25.10.x branch, which takes narrow fixes while feature work happens on edge.

    View source ↗
  3. 2mo ago

    Docker CPU limits, plus a sweep of dependency CVE patches

    An edge build weighted toward maintenance: docker.cpuLimits, a graceful fallback when the array directive meets an executor that cannot support it, and pipeline-secret references passed to the Seqera Scheduler, against a long run of Jackson, logback and bouncycastle CVE bumps.

    View source ↗
  4. 2mo ago

    Plugin bumps only, no engine changes

    Two plugin version bumps and nothing else. Released the same day as 26.04.5 and carrying none of its changes, this is the follow-up patch that ships the plugin updates separately.

    View source ↗
  5. 2mo ago

    GPU metrics land in the execution summary

    The workflow-level execution summary now reports GPU metrics, which matters as more pipelines in this ecosystem run model inference steps. Also propagates the Seqera Intelligent Compute scheduler run identifier through to Platform, continuing the executor integration visible across these releases.

    View source ↗
  6. 2mo ago

    nf-tower folds into nf-seqera, which reaches 1.0.0

    The nf-tower plugin is consolidated into nf-seqera, which ships as 1.0.0 — the plugin layer catching up with the Tower-to-Seqera naming. Also makes Fusion fail with a clear message when no access token is configured rather than failing obscurely.

    View source ↗