Airflow: A Beginner's Guide

Short summary

Airflow is an open-source workflow orchestration platform that schedules, sequences, and monitors data pipelines, shifting from 'I run scripts' to 'I define workflows as code.' Unlike traditional data processing tools, Airflow orchestrates execution order and timing. Core features include Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) for workflow blueprints, calendar-based scheduling, web UI with execution history, automatic retries on failure, and explicit task dependencies—use `airflow standalone` locally to transform Python scripts into fault-tolerant, automated pipelines.

• •Airflow orchestrates pipelines using DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs) as workflow blueprints, not a data processing tool
• •Built-in features: calendar scheduling, web UI monitoring, automatic retries, and task dependency management
• •Quick start with `airflow standalone` on localhost to run Python scripts on schedule without manual triggers

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