Speaker
Description
At the Australian Synchrotron (ANSTO), we see the future of beamline control in increased automation and composable workflows: modular building blocks that can be rearranged as science use cases evolve, and as ML/AI-driven decision points become part of routine experiments. We have adopted Prefect as a workflow engine to orchestrate end-to-end beamline pipelines in a single system, spanning acquisition through to data handling and processing. Prefect flows are used to queue and run Bluesky plans, then trigger downstream tasks such as metadata capture, data aggregation, and automated processing/reduction, with clear state tracking, retries, and beamline staff visibility across the whole chain. By treating these steps as one observable workflow, we reduce ad-hoc glue code and make it easier to standardise operational behaviour across beamlines while still supporting beamline-specific logic. In this presentation we show how Prefect is used at our beamlines, including MX3 and ADS, and demonstrate patterns for combining user-driven acquisition with automated post-acquisition processing. We discuss lessons learned on reliability, scheduling/queuing, and user experience, and outline how a workflow-first approach supports remote operation and scalable data handling.
