# Node-RED as a formal workflow description

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-as-a-formal-workflow-description/76539>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [14 March 2023 07:54 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-as-a-formal-workflow-description/76539 "2023-03-14T07:54:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ralphwetzel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/ralphwetzel/32/53713_2.png) [@ralphwetzel](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/ralphwetzel)\
**Post date:** [14 March 2023 08:09 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-as-a-formal-workflow-description/76539/2 "2023-03-14T08:09:34Z")

</div>

Hi @MarkNZed  
Welcome to this forum!

> [@MarkNZed](#):
>
> is it simple to use Node-RED as a frontend and use a different servce to execute a flow

The flows Node-RED creates are held & stored in a JSON format, that usually can be read by a lot of tools. The challenge is to create an alternative runtime to execute this definition & bring it to life. We've realized this idea for [node-red-mcu](https://github.com/ralphwetzel/node-red-mcu-plugin) ... and it's not simple! 😉

EDIT: @BartButenaers recently did [a nice sketch](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/input-required-for-a-cheat-sheet-of-node-red-mcu-plugin/76486) of the ecosystem we created for node-red-mcu that might give you an additional insight.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-as-a-formal-workflow-description/76539)._