# Developing Portable Pipelines [Workflow Description Language (WDL)](https://github.com/openwdl/wdl/blob/legacy/versions/1.1/SPEC.md) is a portable, open standard for specifying data processing workflows. WDL makes it straightforward to define complex analysis tasks, chain them together in workflows, and parallelize their execution. [Common Workflow Language (CWL)](https://www.commonwl.org/) is a portable, open standard for describing how to run command line tools and how to connect them to run workflows. CWL makes it straightforward to scale complex data analysis workflows from a single workstation to larger cloud or high performance computing environments. The recorded webinars below show how to use WDL and Docker to develop locally, then migrate your pipelines to the DNAnexus Platform. The material includes * An [overview](https://youtu.be/0kDgTyA8Yw4?t=124) of the DNAnexus Platform, and an [introduction](https://youtu.be/0kDgTyA8Yw4?t=266) to building workflows on the platform * An [introduction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kDgTyA8Yw4\&t=719s) to Docker, Docker best practices and [ways to use](https://youtu.be/WGkDu0d8jCc?t=372) Docker images on the platform * An [introduction](https://youtu.be/WGkDu0d8jCc?t=587) to writing workflows in WDL and [running](https://youtu.be/WGkDu0d8jCc?t=2755) them on the platform. The dxWDL tool used in the webinar to compile WDL workflows for execution on the platform has been replaced by the [dxCompiler](/developer/building-and-executing-portable-containers-for-bioinformatics-software/dxcompiler.md). {% embed url="" %} {% embed url="" %} --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://documentation.dnanexus.com/developer/building-and-executing-portable-containers-for-bioinformatics-software.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.