v0.1.0-alpha

[0.1.0-alpha] - 2026-04-26
Added
UI redesign: 8-tab navigation — consolidated from 10+ tabs to 8 focused pages: Dashboard, Monitor (Jobs/Runs/Events), Pipelines (Stages/Map), Builder (full-page job editor), Toolbox (Scripts/Variables/Connections), AI (dedicated job generation page), Settings, and Docs. Color-coded sub-tabs and step navigation. Legacy URL routes redirect automatically.
Dedicated AI page — always visible in the sidebar even without AI configured (shows setup instructions when disabled). Full prompt textarea, example prompts, preview of generated config, "Use This" button to pre-fill the Builder.
AI settings in UI — configure API key, provider (Anthropic/OpenAI), and model from Settings → AI Assistant card. No restart needed — saved to DB and takes effect immediately.
Full-page Builder — replaces the cramped 620px modal with a full-page job editor. Left sidebar with color-coded steps (Task, Schedule, Target, Rules, Alerts, Advanced), AI assistant panel on the right, sticky Save/Cancel. After save, navigates directly to the job detail page.
Variable expiration — optional TTL on variables (30/90/180/365 days). Expired variables show a red badge in the UI. Useful for rotating secrets and temporary config.
API key expiration UI — dropdown to set key expiry (30/90/180/365 days or never). Expired keys shown in red in the key list.
Data export with secrets — GET /api/data/export?include_secrets=true exports decrypted secret variables, connection configs, and API key metadata for backup and migration.
Toolbox search — search/filter for Variables and Connections in the Toolbox page.
AI job creation — describe what you want in natural language, AI generates the full job configuration (name, task, schedule, timeout, notifications). Supports Anthropic Claude and OpenAI GPT. Set KRONFORCE_AI_API_KEY to enable. The AI panel sits beside the Builder form; AI never creates jobs directly — you review and save.
Named connections — credential profiles for databases, APIs, and services. 14 protocol types: PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, FTP, SFTP, HTTP (bearer/basic/header auth), Kafka, MQTT, RabbitMQ, Redis, MongoDB, SSH, SMTP, S3/MinIO. Encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM), masked in API responses, test connectivity from the UI. Jobs reference a connection by name ("connection": "prod-db") instead of embedding passwords. Connection dropdown in job create/edit form. Managed in Toolbox → Connections.
Product tour — first-time user walkthrough with spotlight overlay highlighting each navigation element. Demo mode adds an intro explaining read-only access. Replayable from Settings. Responsive mobile positioning.
Docs search and navigation — search input filters docs sections by content. Mobile gets a search input + "Jump to" section dropdown. Desktop sidebar highlights active section on scroll (scroll-spy).
Pipeline scheduling — set cron or interval schedules on entire pipeline groups. The scheduler automatically triggers root jobs on schedule, and dependencies cascade from there. Configure via the new "Schedule" button on the Stages/Pipeline view, or via the API (PUT /api/jobs/pipeline-schedule/{group}). Schedules persist in settings and survive job changes.
Pipeline run history — "History" button on the Stages view shows a modal with clustered pipeline runs, per-job status icons, overall status badge, and total duration. Click any status icon to view the execution detail.
Jenkins importer — scripts/kronforce-import-jenkins parses Jenkinsfiles and config.xml into Kronforce jobs. --pipeline flag wires stages as dependency chains. Supports bulk import from directories, agent label targeting, retry/timeout extraction, and environment variable import.
Executions group filter — GET /api/executions?group=ETL filters executions to only jobs in that group.
Demo mode banner — fixed top banner in demo mode: "You are viewing a read-only demo of Kronforce" with a link to kronforce.dev and a dismiss button.
In-app migration docs — "Migrating to Kronforce" section in the Docs page with crontab and Jenkins importer usage, and Airflow/Rundeck mapping tables.
Screenshots — README hero image with expandable gallery (8 screenshots), website feature gallery (6 screenshots), migration guide pipeline screenshot.
Expanded demo seed data — 35 jobs across 8 groups (ETL, Monitoring, Deploys, Maintenance, Reports, Data-Sync, Security, Notifications), 12 variables, 3 scripts, 5-stage ETL with archive, 4-stage deploys with post-checks and approval gate, 4-stage maintenance with fan-out/fan-in, 5-stage data-sync with parallel roots, calendar-scheduled reports, event-triggered alerts, and 7 rounds of pipeline runs for rich history.
Dependency cascade — when a job succeeds, on-demand jobs that depend on it are automatically triggered if all their dependencies are now satisfied. Enables Jenkins-style pipeline execution: trigger the first job, the rest cascade automatically.
Group completion events — when all jobs in a group have succeeded, a group.completed event is emitted. Use event triggers to react (send notification, trigger next pipeline, etc.).
Run Group button — trigger all root jobs in a group with one click. Appears on the toolbar when a group is selected. Dependent jobs cascade from there.
Shell working directory — optional working_dir field on shell tasks. Commands run from the specified directory.
Multi-type scripts — Scripts page now supports both Rhai scripts and Dockerfiles with type selector, per-type syntax highlighting, and reference panels. Dockerfile highlighting covers instructions (FROM, RUN, COPY, etc.), strings, variables, and flags.
Docker Build task type — build Docker images from stored Dockerfile scripts. Configure image tag, build args, and optionally run the container after build. 17 total task types.
Calendar schedule — new schedule type for business-day expressions: "last day of month", "2nd Tuesday", "first Friday - 2 days", with month selection, time, offset, weekend skipping, and holiday exclusion. Visual builder in the Schedule tab with live preview.
Interval schedule — "fixed interval from last completion" schedule type. Run again N seconds after the previous execution finishes. Prevents overlap for variable-duration jobs.
Timezone support — optional timezone field on jobs (IANA format, e.g. "America/New_York") for timezone-aware schedule evaluation.
Message queue consumers — 4 new consume/subscribe task types: Kafka Read, MQTT Subscribe, RabbitMQ Read, Redis Read. Consume messages from queues with configurable max message count, offsets, and timeouts. Messages appear in stdout for output extraction processing. Total task types: 16.
Concurrency controls — max_concurrent field on jobs (default 0 = unlimited). Scheduler skips firing if the job already has that many running executions. Prevents overlapping cron runs.
Parameterized runs — jobs can define parameter schemas (name, type, required, default). Trigger accepts runtime params in request body. Use {{params.NAME}} in task fields for substitution. UI shows a parameter form when triggering parameterized jobs.
Webhook triggers — unique token-based URLs per job (POST /api/webhooks/{token}) that trigger without API key auth. Enable/disable via POST/DELETE /api/jobs/{id}/webhook. Accepts optional params in body. Copy-able URL in job detail view.
Live output streaming — SSE endpoint (GET /api/executions/{id}/stream) streams stdout/stderr line-by-line during local execution. Execution detail modal auto-connects when viewing a running job, with auto-scroll and automatic refresh on completion.
Schedule window — optional starts_at and expires_at fields on jobs to constrain when a schedule is active. "Run for 3 weeks then stop", "start next Monday", or any fixed window. Expired jobs auto-unschedule.
Skip dependencies on trigger — manually trigger a blocked job with ?skip_deps=true to bypass dependency checks for a single run. UI adds a "Run Anyway" button in the waiting-on-dependencies modal.
End-to-end tutorial — new docs/TUTORIAL.md walks through controller setup, agent deployment, building a pipeline, and notifications
Cron builder rebuild — full per-field controls for all 6 cron fields (second, minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week) with every/fixed/step/range modes
Group picker popover — replaced group dropdown with searchable popover including inline group creation and deletion
Running/Failed job filters — new filter buttons on jobs page to quickly find running or failed jobs
Clickable last run status — click the last run indicator in jobs table to open execution details; click failed count to jump to history
Job detail action buttons — Pause/Resume, Delete, and Edit buttons now appear on the job detail view alongside Trigger
Edit/Stop buttons in jobs table — edit button opens job modal, stop button cancels running execution
Recent events on job detail — Overview tab now shows the last 15 events for the job with severity, timestamp, kind, and message
Smart empty states — filtered views show "No matching results" with clear-filters button instead of "Create a job" when filters return nothing
Agent connection command box — agents page shows a copy-able connection command with real controller URL, binary/docker tabs
JS test framework — CI now runs JavaScript unit tests for cron builder, formatting, and empty state logic
Changed
Stage card status improvements — pipeline stage cards now handle all execution states: pending re-runs show green with a re-run icon (instead of flashing to idle), cancelled and skipped get distinct icons, and labels are more descriptive.
Rate limiting defaults raised — public limit 30 → 60/min, authenticated 120 → 300/min. Dashboard polling was too close to the old limit.
Rate limiting keyed by IP in demo mode — authenticated middleware falls back to client IP when no API key is present, so demo users get individual rate limit buckets instead of sharing one.
Rate limit 429 page — returns a styled HTML page when the browser requests HTML (with retry countdown and "Try Again" button), JSON for API calls. Frontend shows a toast on 429.
Removed time filter from jobs page — the time range picker hid jobs whose last run was outside the window, which was confusing. Time filters remain on Executions and Events pages.
State column shows execution state — Running and pending_approval executions now override the scheduling status in the jobs table State column
Fixed
Agent callbacks now emit events — execution.completed events were missing for agent-executed jobs, so failed agent jobs didn't appear in the events log
Approval flow preserves params — trigger parameters are now stored on pending_approval executions and passed through when approved
JSON escape safety — parameter substitution fallback now manually escapes dangerous characters instead of inserting raw values
Params validated as object — trigger endpoint rejects non-object params with 400
Stale params in trigger modal — frontend now fetches fresh job data before showing the parameter form
Streaming select loop hang — fixed infinite loop when shell commands exit quickly (e.g. command not found)
cargo-deny — license and advisory checks in CI with deny.toml config. Replaced unmaintained rustls-pemfile with rustls-pki-types.
Dependabot — weekly automated dependency updates for Cargo and GitHub Actions
OIDC/SSO Authentication — optional OpenID Connect login alongside existing API keys. Supports Okta, Azure AD, Google, Keycloak, and any standard OIDC provider. Configurable role mapping from IdP claims to Kronforce roles (admin/operator/viewer). Server-side sessions stored in SQLite with automatic cleanup.
Native TLS — set KRONFORCE_TLS_CERT and KRONFORCE_TLS_KEY to serve HTTPS on both controller and agent; agent client auto-detects HTTPS when agents use port 443
Webhook notifications — Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, and generic webhook support alongside existing email and SMS channels
Prometheus metrics — /metrics endpoint with execution counts, job/agent/group totals, and database health in Prometheus exposition format
Approval workflows — jobs can require approval before execution (approval_required flag); triggering creates a pending_approval execution that must be approved via POST /api/executions/{id}/approve before running
SLA deadlines — per-job completion deadline (HH:MM UTC) with configurable early warning; background monitor fires sla.warning and sla.breach events when running jobs approach or miss their deadline
Secret variables — variables can be marked as secret; values are masked in API responses and the UI but still substituted into tasks at runtime
Job version history — every create/update snapshots the full job definition; query via GET /api/jobs/{id}/versions for audit trail and rollback reference
Job priority — priority field on jobs (default 0); higher priority jobs are scheduled first when multiple are due simultaneously
API key group scoping — API keys can be restricted to specific job groups (allowed_groups), giving team-level isolation without full multi-tenancy
HA/Litestream replication — Docker Compose setup for continuous SQLite replication to S3 with automatic restore on failover
Enhanced health endpoint — /api/health now reports database status, file size, WAL size, and connection pool info
Graceful shutdown — WAL checkpoint on SIGTERM/SIGINT ensures clean database state for replication
Output extraction targets — extractions can now target "variable" (write to global var) or "output" (replace execution stdout with extracted values)
Regex full-match fallback — extraction patterns without capture groups now return the full match instead of silently returning nothing
gRPC custom agent example — examples/grpc_agent.py wraps grpcurl for calling gRPC services via the custom agent protocol
Getting Started page — interactive in-app guide with step-by-step setup and action buttons
Migration guide — docs for migrating from cron, Rundeck, and Airflow with feature mapping tables and step-by-step instructions
Crontab import tool — scripts/kronforce-import-crontab reads crontab from stdin and creates Kronforce jobs via API, with dry-run mode, group assignment, and name prefixing
Job templates — save any job as a reusable template, create new jobs from templates via "From Template" button on Jobs page; templates stored in SQLite with API (GET/POST /api/templates, GET/DELETE /api/templates/{name})
Job Groups — organize jobs into named groups with a dedicated Groups page, Default group for all new jobs, group filter on jobs list, and group dropdown in job create/edit modal
Dashboard Charts — donut charts for execution outcomes, task types, and schedule types with SVG rendering
Dashboard Tabs — tabbed layout (Overview, Activity, Infrastructure) to reduce scrolling
MCP Task Type — call tools on MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers via stdio or HTTP transport, with tool discovery API and dynamic UI form
Execution Retry — automatic retry on failure/timeout with configurable max retries, delay, and exponential backoff
API Rate Limiting — per-IP (public), per-API-key (authenticated), and per-key (agent) rate limits with 429 responses and Retry-After headers
Audit Log — append-only audit trail for all sensitive operations (key management, job CRUD, script changes, settings, variables, agent deregister) with query API
Connection Pooling — r2d2 connection pool replaces single Mutex for concurrent database access
Docker images on GHCR — multi-arch (linux/amd64, linux/arm64) images published to ghcr.io/mikemiles-dev/kronforce on each release
Windows build — x86_64 Windows binaries included in releases
MCP Server — Kronforce acts as an MCP server at POST /mcp, exposing 10 tools with role-based access
Changed
Sidebar redesigned — 7 focused tabs: Dashboard, Monitor, Pipelines, Builder, Toolbox, Settings, Docs. Sub-tabs within Monitor (Jobs/Runs/Events), Pipelines (Stages/Map), and Toolbox (Scripts/Variables/Connections)
Job create/edit modal — group dropdown, priority field, approval checkbox, SLA deadline fields in Advanced tab
Trigger job endpoint returns 202 Accepted instead of 200 OK
Bootstrap API keys only printed to stderr (never written to disk)
Dashboard reorganized — pie charts under Overview, recent executions/groups under Activity tab
Execution timestamps show full UTC on hover, relative time inline
Execution detail modal shows job name (clickable), started/finished UTC timestamps, approve button for pending_approval
Execution list — sortable columns (Job, Status, Started, Duration), job names always resolve correctly
Latest execution per job highlighted with blue border and "latest" label
Shareable URLs for execution details (#/executions/{id})
Map view shows group badges on nodes and group filter dropdown
Fixed
Controller-to-agent dispatch auth — standard agent endpoints now require authentication; controller sends dispatch key
Command injection in Kafka task properties parameter
Privilege escalation via run_as — username now validated
Missing authorization on variable and script mutation endpoints (now require write role)
~50+ unsafe .unwrap() calls replaced with proper error propagation across all DB/executor/API layers
SSRF protection — HTTP tasks block private IPs, localhost, and cloud metadata endpoints
ReDoS protection — regex patterns capped at 1024 characters in output rules
Credential exposure — FTP credentials now passed via temp netrc file instead of command-line arguments
CORS and security headers — X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy
Foreign key constraint on job deletion — now cascades to executions and queue items
Output extractions — regex patterns without capture groups silently returned nothing; now falls back to full match
Executions page job names — always fetches jobs before rendering so names resolve on fresh load
Modal click-to-close — modals no longer close when clicking inside form fields or dragging
MCP client unwrap panic — unsafe .unwrap() calls replaced with proper error handling
Sidebar user/health indicator — restored username display and health dot
Security
rustls-webpki updated to 0.103.12 fixing RUSTSEC-2026-0098 (URI name constraints) and RUSTSEC-2026-0099 (wildcard name constraints)
Native TLS support on controller and agent (rustls, no OpenSSL dependency)
Agent dispatch authentication (controller → agent requests now require Bearer token)
OIDC/OAuth2 SSO with server-side sessions
API key group scoping for team isolation
API rate limiting on all endpoints (configurable, 3 tiers)
Audit logging for all state-changing operations
SSRF protection on HTTP task URLs
Secret variable masking in API and UI
Approval workflow gates on job execution

What's Changed

• Add tests by @mikemiles-dev in #1
• refactor: move Docker files to deploy/docker/ and increase output cap… by @mikemiles-dev in #2
• refactor: move .env.example to deploy/docker/ by @mikemiles-dev in #3
• fix: preserve executions on job delete, fix schedule summary for step… by @mikemiles-dev in #4
• feat: global variables with {{VAR_NAME}} substitution, extraction wri… by @mikemiles-dev in #5
• refactor: split dashboard.html into web/ directory with build.rs conc… by @mikemiles-dev in #6
• feat: add --reset-admin-key CLI flag to regenerate admin API key by @mikemiles-dev in #7
• refactor: code quality improvements — safety, deduplication, OOP patt… by @mikemiles-dev in #8
• chore: add CHANGELOG.md and reset version to 0.1.0 for initial release by @mikemiles-dev in #9
• feat: auto-generate bootstrap keys and save to bootstrap-keys.txt by @mikemiles-dev in #10
• refactor: db_call helper, notification dedup, query builder, transact… by @mikemiles-dev in #11
• test: add 118 new tests and doc comments across codebase by @mikemiles-dev in #12
• refactor: move database migrations from inline SQL to migrations/ files by @mikemiles-dev in #13
• refactor: replace qualified crate:: and tracing:: paths with use imports by @mikemiles-dev in #14
• Delete .claude directory by @mikemiles-dev in #15
• docs: add doc comments to all undocumented public items across the co… by @mikemiles-dev in #16
• refactor: simplify complex functions across scheduler, executor, and … by @mikemiles-dev in #17
• refactor: reorganize file layout — split models, task types, and clea… by @mikemiles-dev in #18
• refactor: improve encapsulation by moving free functions into impl bl… by @mikemiles-dev in #19
• refactor: split monolithic index.html into partial HTML files by @mikemiles-dev in #20
• fix: move last_used_at update after permission check and add missing … by @mikemiles-dev in #21
• fix: comprehensive security hardening and code quality improvements by @mikemiles-dev in #22
• feat: add donut charts to dashboard for execution outcomes, task type… by @mikemiles-dev in #23
• feat: add tabbed navigation to dashboard to reduce scrolling by @mikemiles-dev in #24
• feat: add per-IP and per-API-key rate limiting to all API endpoints by @mikemiles-dev in #25
• feat: add append-only audit log and update all documentation by @mikemiles-dev in #26
• feat: add job groups for organizing jobs into logical categories by @mikemiles-dev in #27
• feat: add automatic execution retry with configurable backoff by @mikemiles-dev in #28
• Feat/job groups UI by @mikemiles-dev in #29
• refactor: replace single Mutex with r2d2 connection pool by @mikemiles-dev in #30
• fix: eliminate flaky config test by serializing env var access with m… by @mikemiles-dev in #31
• Chore/alpha release prep by @mikemiles-dev in #32
• fix: use macos-13 for x86_64-apple-darwin builds (macos-latest is now… by @mikemiles-dev in #33
• feat: add MCP (Model Context Protocol) task type for AI tool integration by @mikemiles-dev in #34
• feat: add MCP test server example with setup docs by @mikemiles-dev in #35
• fix: sweep of 9 bugs across backend and frontend by @mikemiles-dev in #36
• deps: bump tokio from 1.50.0 to 1.51.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #49
• deps: bump lettre from 0.11.19 to 0.11.21 by @dependabot[bot] in #47
• deps: bump hyper from 1.8.1 to 1.9.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #48
• deps: bump uuid from 1.22.0 to 1.23.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #45
• ci: bump actions/setup-node from 4 to 6 by @dependabot[bot] in #42
• ci: bump docker/login-action from 3 to 4 by @dependabot[bot] in #38
• ci: bump softprops/action-gh-release from 2 to 3 by @dependabot[bot] in #39
• deps: bump petgraph from 0.7.1 to 0.8.3 by @dependabot[bot] in #43
• ci: bump actions/download-artifact from 4 to 8 by @dependabot[bot] in #40
• deps: bump sha2 from 0.10.9 to 0.11.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #46
• deps: bump rand from 0.9.3 to 0.10.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #50
• ci: bump docker/setup-buildx-action from 3 to 4 by @dependabot[bot] in #41
• deps: bump reqwest from 0.12.28 to 0.13.2 by @dependabot[bot] in #44
• ci: bump actions/upload-artifact from 4 to 7 by @dependabot[bot] in #52
• ci: bump docker/build-push-action from 6 to 7 by @dependabot[bot] in #53
• ci: bump actions/checkout from 4 to 6 by @dependabot[bot] in #54
• deps: bump rustls from 0.23.37 to 0.23.38 by @dependabot[bot] in #55

New Contributors

• @mikemiles-dev made their first contribution in #1
• @dependabot[bot] made their first contribution in #49

Full Changelog: https://github.com/mikemiles-dev/kronforce/commits/v0.1.0-alpha