Runners

A runner is the process that executes a flow: it sends the requests, evaluates assertions, and reports node results back. Echopoint has three runner types; every flow runs unchanged on any of them.

Cloud runner

The default. Launch a flow from the UI, CLI, or API and Echopoint’s managed runner executes it — nothing to install or operate.

Use it when the APIs under test are reachable from the public internet and you want zero setup.

Self-hosted runner

A runner you operate on your own infrastructure. Self-hosted runners claim jobs through lease-based claiming — a runner takes a lease on a job, executes it, and reports back — and send heartbeats so the platform knows they are alive. The UI shows your live runners with their current load and heartbeat freshness.

Use it when flows need to reach services the cloud runner cannot: internal APIs, staging environments behind a VPN, on-prem systems. Launch against it from the CLI:

echopoint flows launch <flow-id> --runner self_hosted

The runner source is public on GitHub: github.com/nanostack-dev/echopoint-runner.

Ephemeral runner

A one-shot runner for CI: it spins up inside your job, executes, and exits. The flow snapshot and resolved inputs are delivered to the process, it runs the flow from within your CI environment, and results are published back to Echopoint — so run history and node results look the same as any other execution.

This is what echopoint flows run and the GitHub Action use:

echopoint flows run --tag smoke --environment staging

- uses: nanostack-dev/echopoint-cli@v1
  with:
    api-key: ${{ secrets.ECHOPOINT_API_KEY }}
    organization-id: ${{ secrets.ECHOPOINT_ORG_ID }}
    tags: smoke

Because the runner executes inside the job, it reaches whatever the job can reach — a service started in the pipeline, a preview deployment — without standing up a long-lived self-hosted runner.

Choosing a runner

	Cloud	Self-hosted	Ephemeral (CI)
Setup	None	Install on your infra	None — built into CLI and Action
Reaches	Public APIs	Private networks, internal services	Whatever the CI job reaches
Lifetime	Managed	Long-lived, heartbeats	One execution, then exits
Typical use	On-demand runs from the app	Staging behind a VPN, on-prem	Smoke suites on every push

Secret boundary

Resolved environment values are delivered only to the launched execution and are never logged. This holds for all three runner types — in CI, the ephemeral runner receives resolved inputs for its single execution, and the GitHub Action additionally masks the API key in job logs.

Next steps

• Executions & live runs — statuses, live progress, and node results
• CLI — flows run and flows launch reference
• GitHub Action — inputs, outputs, and required key scopes
• Environments & variables — how inputs are resolved before delivery