Orchestrator

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Curiosity Orchestrator

Run several Curiosity Studio instances on one machine, behind a single address. Each one is a Docker container that wakes when someone opens it and sleeps when nobody does.

InstallQuick start

What is the Orchestrator?

The Orchestrator is a server that sits in front of Docker on one machine and hosts Curiosity Studio instances, called workspaces in its console and API. Each workspace is a container of curiosityai/curiosity with its own data volume. The Orchestrator creates the containers, proxies traffic to them, and stops them when they are idle.

It provides:

  • A public landing page (/) that lists the published workspaces. Opening a sleeping one shows a starting page that wakes it and takes the visitor in when it is ready.
  • A management console (/#/manage, password protected) to create, start, stop, update, back up and delete workspaces, and to watch their CPU, memory, network, disk and logs.
  • A reverse proxy. https://example.com/acme/ and https://acme.example.com/ reach the same workspace, HTTP and websockets alike.
  • Sleep and wake. A workspace without traffic for an hour is stopped. Opening it starts it again. A workspace can be kept warm for up to 7 days, or always online.
  • HTTPS with your own certificate, a self-signed one, or certificates from Let's Encrypt that renew on their own.
  • A management API that also accepts a bearer token, for scripts.
  • Accounts, console users and a fleet. Accounts that every workspace gets, console users who manage only their own workspaces, and a central Orchestrator that manages nodes on other machines.

The Orchestrator is one self-contained program. You do not need a .NET installation, only Docker.

The public landing page, listing two workspaces: Aviation Intelligence running and Supplier Risk Review sleepingThe public landing page, listing two workspaces: Aviation Intelligence running and Supplier Risk Review sleeping

The console Workspaces page with a running and a sleeping workspaceThe console Workspaces page with a running and a sleeping workspace

What it is not

  • It does not run on Kubernetes. It drives the Docker Engine API of the machine it runs on, or of a Docker daemon it can reach over TCP.
  • It is not a high availability setup. One Orchestrator serves one Docker host. A fleet adds machines, but one central holds the catalogue.
  • It does not change what a workspace is. Inside the container, Studio is the same product you would install with Docker. See the Studio documentation for what it does.
  • It does not reach nodes that sit behind NAT. The central must be able to call each node.

The five minute path

1

Install it

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/curiosity-ai/orchestrator/refs/heads/main/install.sh | sh
2

Start it

ORC_ADMIN_PASSWORD='choose-a-password' curiosity-orchestrator
3

Create a workspace

Open http://localhost:8080/#/manage, sign in as admin, and create a workspace named acme. The first creation pulls the Studio image, which takes a while.

4

Open it

Go to http://localhost:8080/acme/ or http://acme.localhost:8080/.

Quick start explains each step and what to expect.

How it fits together

flowchart LR B[Browser] -->|"/ , /#/manage, /api/*"| K[Orchestrator] B -->|"/acme/... or acme.host/..."| K K -->|"/acme/... to / (HTTP and websockets)"| C1[(curiosity-acme<br/>container)] K -->|Docker Engine API| D[Docker] D --- C1 D --- C2[(curiosity-beta<br/>container)] K --- R[(RocksDB<br/>in ORC_STORAGE)]

State lives in a RocksDB database under ORC_STORAGE. Each workspace's own data lives in a Docker volume, curiosity-<slug>-data, which the Orchestrator never touches except when you ask it to delete, restore or reset.

Where to go next

Install

The install script, a manual download, or the Docker image.

Run it on a server

A systemd service on a Linux host, with HTTPS from Let's Encrypt.

Sleep and wake

Idle shutdown, keep warm, always online, capacity and low memory.

Fleet

A central Orchestrator that manages nodes on other machines.