Published on 01 January 2016

Common Workflow Language, v1.0

Amstutz, Peter;Crusoe, Michael R.;Nebojša Tijanić;Chapman, Brad;Chilton, John;Heuer, Michael;Kartashov, Andrey;Leehr, Dan;Ménager, Hervé;Nedeljkovich, Maya;Scales, Matt;Soiland-Reyes, Stian;Stojanovic, Luka

Description

The Common Workflow Language (CWL) is an informal, multi-vendor working group consisting of various organizations and individuals that have an interest in portability of data analysis workflows. Our goal is to create specifications that enable data scientists to describe analysis tools and workflows that are powerful, easy to use, portable, and support reproducibility.

CWL builds on technologies such as JSON-LD and Avro for data modeling and Docker for portable runtime environments. CWL is designed to express workflows for data-intensive science, such as Bioinformatics, Medical Imaging, Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy.

This is v1.0 of the CWL tool and workflow specification, released on 2016-07-08.

The specification, in HTML format, is in the draft-3/docs folder.

Citations (231)

https://openalex.org/W3206127918
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Mentions (257)

https://github.com/codeatcodecto/metadata-in-rcr
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 05 October 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/common-workflow-language/cwl-website
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 14 September 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/common-workflow-language/common-workflow-language
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 24 August 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/BiodataAnalysisGroup/CWL_HTS_pipelines
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 15 August 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/ld32/eCLIP
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 31 July 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/kostaskyritsis/CWL_HTS_pipelines
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 27 July 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/zzygyx9119/CWL_HTS_pipelines
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 17 July 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/seanpm2001/Common-Workflow-Language_CWL-Website
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 30 May 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/chinchien-lin/common-workflow-language
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 12 March 2025
Weight: 1.76
https://github.com/CarterWilson073/common-workflow-language
Software Heritage
Mentioned on 12 February 2025
Weight: 1.76

Metrics

Dataset Index

258.9

FAIR Score

13%

Citations

231

Mentions

257

Metrics Over Time

Publication Details

DOI

10.6084/m9.figshare.3115156.v2

Publisher

figshare

Assigned Domain

Topic Name

Scientific Computing and Data Management

Subfield

Information Systems and Management

Field

Decision Sciences

Domain

Social Sciences

Keywords

60102 BioinformaticsFOS: Computer and information sciencesComputational Biology80301 Bioinformatics SoftwareComputer Software80302 Computer System Architecture80501 Distributed and Grid SystemsDistributed Computing

Normalization Factors

13.46

CTw

1.00

MTw

1.00