Flowpipe
Flowpipe is an open-source HCL-based pipeline and workflow engine for DevOps automation, developed by Turbot — the same team behind Steampipe. It enables engineering teams to define ordered pipelines of steps (SQL queries, HTTP calls, container executions, Lambda-compatible functions) triggered by schedules, webhooks, or data changes. The project is written in Go, has approximately 470 GitHub stars, and was last updated in May 2026.
Flowpipe Hub provides pre-built library mods for AWS, GitHub, Jira, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zendesk. A canonical use case: query AWS IAM for expired access keys via a Steampipe SQL step, post a Slack notification, then deactivate the keys — all defined in a single HCL pipeline file.
Placed in Tools / Assess / inner.
Flowpipe's primary differentiator is the combination of HCL syntax and native Steampipe integration. HCL is already familiar to infrastructure practitioners using Terraform; no new language is required. The Steampipe pairing is significant — Steampipe's 460+ SQL tables across 140+ cloud and SaaS providers become first-class data sources for Flowpipe pipelines, making the two tools a coherent operational automation stack: Steampipe queries cloud state, Flowpipe acts on it.
Flowpipe is positioned for operational automation — compliance enforcement, cloud hygiene, incident response — rather than code delivery pipelines, which distinguishes it from GitHub Actions and similar CI/CD tools. Development and testing run locally before any deployment.
Inner position reflects the Steampipe relationship (already on this radar at Tools/Assess/inner) as a natural trial path, HCL familiarity reducing onboarding friction, and the Flowpipe Hub mods eliminating boilerplate for common cloud/SaaS integrations. The modest star count (470) is the primary caveat against moving higher — community breadth is limited relative to comparable tools.
Trial gate: a completed pipeline automating at least one real operational task (compliance check, notification, cloud hygiene) using a Steampipe SQL step and at least one external service integration.
