open-source

• 2026-03-18

  (Re)Making Cirrus: Three lessons learned

  Reflecting on five-plus years of building Cirrus, Element 84’s data orchestration framework, three core lessons emerge that apply to software projects generally: follow the money to understand what drives development, expect the pendulum of overcorrection and iteration, and hold fast to an unchanging vision. Part 2 of 2.
• 2026-02-23

  (Re)Making Cirrus: Reflections on five years spent building an open-source data orchestrator

  Cirrus, Element 84’s open-source data orchestration framework, recently turned five years old — and we’ve rebuilt it at least three times along the way. This is a retrospective on where Cirrus came from, from its origins in NASA’s Cumulus through the STAC Workflows idea, the project CLI, the SWOOP detour, and finally the v1.0.0 release, plus a look at where it’s headed next.