The bevy-impulse library is Open-RMF’s next generation workflow execution solution.
The library was named several years ago when its purpose was much more limited in scope: simply to fire off one-shot pulses of bevy systems and make some aspects of async programming in bevy easier. Since then it has organically evolved into a fully-featured multi-agent workflow execution framework and engine. At this point, its relationship to bevy is almost just an implementation detail (albeit a very positive one).
As it stands, the current name does not do a good job of conveying its purpose, and we often find ourselves calling it “the workflow library” instead of referring to it by its actual name. This is a very bad sign in terms of branding. The Open-RMF PMC intends to rename this library, and in the spirit of the open source community, we will work through that process publicly.
Here are the names that are currently under consideration:
FreeFlow
- My personal favorite, conveying unconstrained flow and reflecting the fact that it is a free open source library.
- Unfortunately this name is already trademarked by Xerox, and part of their trademark registration includes “for workflow management”, so this seems like a direct clash.
bevy-flow
- Pros:
- Retains the tie to the bevy game engine, which is good for visibility within that very active community.
- By definition, a “bevy” is a large group, which ties in well to the multi-agent support of the library.
- Cons:
- This name may give the misleading impression that this library belongs to the bevy project.
- Bevy is still relatively unknown within the ROS and robotics community, and the more general meaning of the word is not well known enough for most people to associate it with multi-agent workflows.
crossflow
- Seems to be a unique name within this domain, so there should be no risk of trademark conflicts or confusion with other projects.
- Conveys the way this library is effective at communicating across different agents and across different middlewares.
- Evokes imagery of lines crossing over each other, which is a common pattern in workflows created with this library. This should easily lend itself to a brand image, if we choose to create one.
- Conveys a sense of complexity.
Feel free to leave comments on these ideas, or to suggest any others that come to mind.
We will discuss the renaming live at the next Open-RMF PMC meeting [zoom link] on 2025-10-07T01:00:00Z.