Hi Divesh, The proposal for a headless, API-first manufacturing application looks very exciting. I would be happy to contribute to this effort.
Let me know how I can support or get involved. Thanks -- Nameet Jain On Wed, Mar 11, 2026 at 1:23 PM Divesh Dutta <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Over the past few weeks we’ve had some very valuable discussions on the > mailing list about the future direction of Apache OFBiz, including topics > such as modularization, API-first architecture, and making applications > more independent from the framework. > > Several people have pointed out that while Apache OFBiz has strong > capabilities, the current codebase still behaves largely as a monolithic > system. Ideas such as gradually separating subsystems, improving boundaries > between components, and enabling more modular deployment models have come > up repeatedly. > > I wanted to propose a practical experiment that could help us explore these > ideas concretely. > > > *Proposal: A New Headless, API-First Manufacturing Application* > The idea is to build a new Manufacturing application as a plugin in the > OFBiz plugins directory. > > This new application would aim to replicate the functional capabilities of > the existing Manufacturing component, but with a modern architecture > approach: > > > - API-first > - Headless > - Framework-independent application layer > - PWA-based user interface > > > The goal is not to replace the current manufacturing component immediately, > but rather to create a working reference implementation that demonstrates > how modern OFBiz applications could be built going forward. > > This could help illustrate how OFBiz can operate as: > > > - A backend enterprise automation framework > - with applications built as modular plugins > - and UI layers decoupled from the backend > > > > > *Why Manufacturing?* > We recently documented the Manufacturing application and its workflows, > contributing them to the OFBiz wiki. This process gave us a solid > understanding of the domain. > > Because of this domain knowledge, Manufacturing felt like a good candidate > for a reference implementation that could help validate architectural ideas > while also producing something useful for the community. > > > > *Proposed Phases* > To keep the scope manageable, the work could be broken into incremental > phases. > > > > *Phase 1 — API-First Backend* > In the first phase: > > > - Reuse the existing manufacturing services where possible. > - Expose those services as REST APIs. > - If any workflows currently rely on events, convert those flows into > services that can also be exposed via REST. > - Test complete manufacturing workflows purely through the APIs to > ensure the logic behaves correctly. > > > This phase would effectively produce a fully API-driven manufacturing > backend. > > > > > *Phase 2 — Headless PWA UI* > Once the APIs are stable: > > > - Build a Progressive Web Application (PWA) as the UI layer. > - The UI will communicate only through the REST APIs. > - Validate full workflows through the new UI. > > > This phase would demonstrate how headless OFBiz applications can work in > practice. > > > > *Phase 3 — Agentic / AI Experiments* > In a later phase, we could experiment with agentic workflows, where AI > agents interact with the system through APIs. > > This could include: > > > - Agents invoking OFBiz services > - Workflow automation through LLM-driven interfaces > - experimenting with emerging agent frameworks > > The goal here would be to explore how OFBiz can integrate with AI-driven > automation systems. > > > *Why This Could Be Valuable for the Community* > This effort could serve as a living example of several modernization ideas > we have been discussing: > > > - API-first OFBiz applications > - Headless architecture > - Plugin-based applications > - Clearer separation between the framework and application layers > - modern UI approaches such as PWA > > > It would also give developers a reference implementation showing how to > build modern applications on top of Apache OFBiz. > > > *Development Approach* > To keep the process flexible and non-disruptive: > > > - I will initially start development in a personal GitHub repository. > - Once the architecture stabilizes and the community finds the direction > useful, we could discuss merging it into the OFBiz plugin repository. > - I will also create a parent JIRA ticket for this initiative so that > tasks can be tracked and broken into smaller child tickets. > > Additionally, I plan to create a requirements document describing the > manufacturing workflows that the new application should support. That > document can serve as the baseline for development and discussion. > > > > *Request for Feedback* > I’d really appreciate feedback from the community on this idea. > > Some questions that may be useful to discuss: > > > - Does building a reference application plugin feel like a useful way to > explore modernization ideas? > - Are there architectural considerations we should keep in mind from the > start? > - Are there other areas where this approach could be useful? > > > My hope is that this can become a collaborative experiment that helps us > better understand how Apache OFBiz can evolve while still respecting the > existing codebase and community practices. > > Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. > > Thanks > -- > Divesh Dutta > www.hotwaxsystems.com >
