Local World | Workflow DevKit

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

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

235

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View comprehensive E2E test results against all frameworks/configurations

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Benchmarks

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

Benchmark	Time	Min	Max	Samples
Promise.all with 10 concurrent steps	1.40s	1.35s	1.44s	15
Promise.all with 25 concurrent steps	2.45s	2.39s	2.55s	10
Promise.all with 50 concurrent steps	6.69s	6.58s	6.79s	4
Promise.race with 10 concurrent steps	1.44s	1.33s	1.57s	15
Promise.race with 25 concurrent steps	2.61s	2.47s	2.81s	10
Promise.race with 50 concurrent steps	7.59s	7.35s	7.83s	4
workflow with 1 step	1.12s	1.11s	1.13s	10
workflow with 10 sequential steps	10.86s	10.86s	10.87s	3
workflow with 25 sequential steps	27.51s	27.50s	27.52s	3
workflow with 50 sequential steps	57.08s	57.07s	57.08s	2
workflow with no steps	58ms	41ms	182ms	10

Stream Benchmarks

Benchmark	Time	TTFB	Slurp	Min	Max	Samples
workflow with stream	187ms	992ms	13ms	184ms	201ms	10

Last updated: 2/4/2026, 2:12:09 AM · Commit: 6208616

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.