Superplane — Open-Source Control Plane for Agentic Engineering

Introduction

Superplane is an open-source control plane for managing event-driven workflows in platform engineering and AI agent orchestration. It provides approval gates, event routing, and a visual pipeline builder to coordinate deployments, agent tasks, and infrastructure changes with human oversight.

What Superplane Does

• Orchestrates event-driven workflows with configurable trigger conditions
• Provides approval gates for human-in-the-loop decision points
• Routes events from GitHub, CI systems, and custom webhooks to pipeline stages
• Manages deployment and release automation with rollback capabilities
• Offers a visual pipeline builder for designing multi-stage workflows

Architecture Overview

Superplane is built with Go on the backend and React on the frontend. The event engine listens for incoming webhooks and matches them against pipeline definitions using configurable rules. Each pipeline stage can execute actions, wait for approvals, or trigger downstream events. State is persisted in PostgreSQL, and the system supports Kubernetes-native deployment with CRDs for pipeline definitions.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Deploy with Docker Compose or Helm charts for Kubernetes
• Configure webhook endpoints for event sources like GitHub and CI providers
• Set up PostgreSQL as the backing database for pipeline state
• Define pipelines using YAML configuration files or the visual builder
• Configure notification channels for approval requests and status updates

Key Features

• Event-driven architecture that reacts to webhooks, cron schedules, and manual triggers
• Human approval gates with timeout and escalation policies
• Visual pipeline editor for designing multi-stage workflows
• Audit log for all pipeline executions and approval decisions
• Kubernetes-native with optional CRD-based pipeline management

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Argo Workflows — DAG-based workflows on Kubernetes; Superplane adds event routing and approval gates
• Temporal — durable execution engine; Superplane focuses on control plane orchestration with visual editing
• n8n — general workflow automation; Superplane targets platform engineering and deployment pipelines
• PipeCD — GitOps deployment; Superplane provides broader event-driven workflow orchestration

FAQ

Q: Does Superplane replace CI/CD tools? A: No, it complements them by adding event routing, approval gates, and orchestration around existing CI/CD pipelines.

Q: Can I use Superplane without Kubernetes? A: Yes, the Docker Compose deployment runs without Kubernetes. Kubernetes features like CRDs are optional.

Q: How does the approval gate work? A: When a pipeline reaches an approval stage, it pauses and sends notifications. Authorized users approve or reject via the dashboard or API.

Q: What event sources are supported? A: GitHub webhooks, generic HTTP webhooks, cron schedules, and manual triggers are supported out of the box.

Sources

• https://github.com/superplanehq/superplane