What is a workflow

A workflow automates work that should happen without someone stepping through it. When an order arrives, check it, create a job and notify the team. Every night, export the day's production figures. When a file lands in a watched folder, read it and update the matching records. You describe the work once; the platform runs it each time it is needed and records what happened.

Nodes and edges

A workflow is made of steps, called nodes, joined by connections, called edges. Each node does one thing: calculate values, test a condition, run a Lua script, query data, call an external service, wait, or repeat work for each item in a list. An edge means one node runs after another. The order you write nodes in does not matter; the edges decide what runs when. A condition node chooses which branch continues.

Each run receives inputs, available as input, and an optional input schema states which inputs a run needs. Every node's result is available to the nodes after it as nodes.<id>.output, so a later step can use what an earlier step produced.

How a workflow starts

Run a workflow yourself, or start it through the API with executeWorkflow, supplying its inputs. To run it automatically, attach a trigger:

• on a schedule;
• when a platform event occurs, such as a record changing; the trigger can load that record's data into the run's inputs first;
• when a connected device publishes a message;
• when a webhook address is called;
• when an edge app reports an event;
• when a file arrives in a watched folder.

What happens during a run

Each run is an execution you can inspect: its inputs, the status and output of every step, and any error. A workflow runs under its execution identity, a bot user whose permissions decide what the workflow can read and change. Give that identity only the access the workflow needs.

You edit a draft and save it as a version. One version is active and is used by new runs; activating another version never rewrites an existing one.

When to use something else

A workflow runs on its own. For a guided process that a person steps through, use a Journey. For a screen that shows and edits data, use a Workspace. For a document or data export produced on demand or on a schedule, use a Report; a workflow can start one with a run-report step.

The next chapter builds a first workflow in the editor.