Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A genomics pipeline distributed as CWL and run unchanged on AWS Batch, on Slurm, and on a local cwltool installation.
- Is an instance
A WDL workflow executed on Cromwell at the Broad Institute and on Terra in the cloud.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A bash script that calls tools in sequence (no portable specification).
- Not an instance
A Python script that pipes stages internally without an external workflow descriptor.
Editorial commentary
Common Workflow Language (CWL) and Workflow Description Language (WDL) are the two most widely adopted standards in genomics and large-scale computational biology, with execution engines including cwltool, Toil, Cromwell, miniWDL, and Arvados. Workflow languages support reproducibility" class="text-primary underline-offset-2 hover:underline" data-autolinked="true" title="Computational reproducibility — CASRAI Dictionary">computational reproducibility by separating 'what to compute' from 'where to run it'.
References
- Crusoe et al., 'Methods Included: Standardizing Computational Reuse and Portability with the Common Workflow Language' (Communications of the ACM, 2022).
Also known as
CWL · WDL · workflow specification language
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Workflow language (CWL/WDL)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/workflow-language-cwl-wdl" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "Workflow language (CWL/WDL)",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/workflow-language-cwl-wdl",
"description": "A declarative specification language for describing multi-step computational analyses such that the steps, their inputs and outputs, and their software dependencies are portable across compatible workflow execution engines.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/reproducibility-and-computational-research/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/workflow-language-cwl-wdl",
"sameAs": [
"CWL",
"WDL",
"workflow specification language"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
