  In this work, we introduce an open-source $\texttt{Julia}$ project,
$\texttt{express}$, an extensible, high-throughput, high-level workflow
framework that aims to automate $\textit{ab initio}$ calculations for the
materials science community. $\texttt{Express}$ is shipped with well-tested
workflow templates, including structure optimization, equation of state (EOS)
fitting, phonon spectrum (lattice dynamics) calculation, and thermodynamic
property calculation in the framework of the quasi-harmonic approximation
(QHA). It is designed to be highly modularized so that its components can be
reused across various occasions, and customized workflows can be built on top
of that. Users can also track the status of workflows in real-time, and rerun
failed jobs thanks to the data lineage feature $\texttt{express}$ provides. Two
working examples, i.e., all workflows applied to lime and akimotoite, are also
presented in the code and this paper.
