Local Development

Last reviewed: over 1 year ago

Workflows support local development using Wrangler, the command-line interface for Workers. Wrangler runs an emulated version of Workflows compared to the one that Cloudflare runs globally.

Prerequisites

To develop locally with Workflows, you will need:

Wrangler v3.89.0 ↗ or later.
Node.js version of 18.0.0 or later. Consider using a Node version manager like Volta ↗ or nvm ↗ to avoid permission issues and change Node versions.
If you are new to Workflows and/or Cloudflare Workers, refer to the Workflows Guide to install wrangler and deploy their first Workflows.

Start a local development session

Open your terminal and run the following commands to start a local development session:

# Confirm we are using wrangler v3.89.0+
npx wrangler --version

⛅️ wrangler 3.89.0

Start a local dev session

# Start a local dev session:
npx wrangler dev

------------------
Your worker has access to the following bindings:
- Workflows:
  - MY_WORKFLOW: MyWorkflow
⎔ Starting local server...
[wrangler:inf] Ready on http://127.0.0.1:8787/

Local development sessions create a standalone, local-only environment that mirrors the production environment Workflows runs in so you can test your Workflows before you deploy to production.

Refer to the wrangler dev documentation to learn more about how to configure a local development session.

Manage Workflows locally

While a wrangler dev session is running, you can use all wrangler workflows commands with the --local flag to interact with your local Workflow instances.

For example, to list your local Workflows:

npx wrangler workflows list --local

To trigger a Workflow locally:

npx wrangler workflows trigger my-workflow --local

To inspect a specific instance:

npx wrangler workflows instances describe my-workflow <INSTANCE_ID> --local

All commands accept --port to target a specific wrangler dev session (defaults to 8787).

Known Issues

Workflows are not supported as remote bindings or when using npx wrangler dev --remote.