Dagster is a data orchestration platform designed to manage the entire lifecycle of data assets through declarative modeling and version-controlled code. It functions as a workflow engine that treats data assets as first-class primitives, allowing teams to define, schedule, and monitor complex pipelines while maintaining clear visibility into lineage, dependencies, and data quality.
The platform distinguishes itself by using a code-as-configuration framework that enables standard software engineering practices, such as unit testing and local mocking, to be applied directly to data workflows. Its architecture is built on a pluggable execution engine that decouples orchestration logic from the underlying compute, allowing tasks to run across diverse cloud-native, serverless, and containerized environments. Furthermore, it supports partition-aware scheduling, which enables incremental processing and efficient management of high-volume datasets.
Beyond core orchestration, the system provides a comprehensive suite of tools for data platform management, including automated quality governance, infrastructure cost optimization, and centralized asset cataloging. It integrates with enterprise identity providers for access control and offers robust observability features, such as streaming logs and visual lineage tracking, to ensure system health and compliance.
The platform supports a variety of deployment models, ranging from self-hosted and hybrid configurations to a fully managed control plane. It includes specialized utilities for migrating legacy pipelines and operationalizing interactive scripts into production-ready components.
