Local World - Workflow

The Local World is bundled with workflow and used automatically during local development. No installation or configuration required.

To explicitly use the local world in any environment, set the environment variable:

WORKFLOW_TARGET_WORLD=local

Observability

The workflow CLI uses the local world by default. Running these commands inside your workflow project will show your local development workflows:

# List recent workflow runs
npx workflow inspect runs

# Launch the web UI
npx workflow web

Learn more in the Observability documentation.

Testing & Performance

E2E Tests

Passing100% passing

Spec compliance is tested against Next.js (Turbopack) built in production mode and started with `next start`. View CI run →

170

Passed

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170

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View comprehensive E2E test results against all frameworks/configurations

834

Passed

Failed

Skipped

850

Total

Benchmarks

Click on a benchmark to view performance history over the last 30 commits.

Benchmark	Time	Samples
Promise.all with 10 concurrent steps	1.41s	15
Promise.all with 25 concurrent steps	2.22s	10
Promise.race with 10 concurrent steps	1.43s	15
Promise.race with 25 concurrent steps	2.30s	10
workflow with 1 step	1.11s	10
workflow with 10 sequential steps	10.78s	5
workflow with no steps	43ms	10

Stream Benchmarks

Benchmark	Time	TTFB	Slurp	Samples
workflow with stream	176ms	992ms	—	10

Last updated: 1/9/2026, 2:29:13 PM · Commit: adb9312

Configuration

The local world works with zero configuration, but you can customize behavior through environment variables or programmatically via createLocalWorld().

`WORKFLOW_LOCAL_DATA_DIR`

Directory for storing workflow data as JSON files. Default: .workflow-data/

`PORT`

The application dev server port. Used to enqueue steps and workflows. Default: auto-detected

`WORKFLOW_LOCAL_BASE_URL`

Full base URL override for HTTPS or custom hostnames. Default: http://localhost:{port}

Port resolution priority: baseUrl > port > PORT > auto-detected

`WORKFLOW_LOCAL_QUEUE_CONCURRENCY`

Maximum number of concurrent queue workers. Default: 100

Programmatic configuration

workflow.config.ts

import { createLocalWorld } from "@workflow/world-local";

const world = createLocalWorld({
  dataDir: "./custom-workflow-data",
  port: 5173,
  // baseUrl overrides port if set
  baseUrl: "https://local.example.com:3000",
});

Limitations

The local world is designed for development, not production:

In-memory queue - Steps are queued in memory and do not persist across server restarts
Filesystem storage - Data is stored in local JSON files
Single instance - Cannot handle distributed deployments
No authentication - Suitable only for local development

For production deployments, use the Vercel World or Postgres World.