Building flows
The board
The board is where a flow is drawn, and where its runs are watched. This page is a tour of what is on it and how to work with it quickly.
Getting to a board
The flow list has three sections, Flows, Procedures and Structs, each with a name field and a button: New flow, New procedure, New struct. Creating one opens its board straight away. Each card shows when the flow last ran and how that run ended, or Never run.
The toolbar
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Flows / name | The breadcrumb back to the flow list. The pencil renames the flow: Enter saves, Esc cancels. |
| Group into flow | Moves the selected processes (and selected objects) into a new flow process. See Zooming in. |
| Tidy up | Lays the whole board out from the top and resets hand-drawn link routes. |
| Save and the version toggle | Saves a version of the board; the toggle shows Not saved or Version N. See Versions and history. |
| MCP servers, Data, OPL, Settings | The MCP servers agents can use, the table of every run's values, the board as sentences, and the flow's settings (repositories, branch prefix, who sees it). |
| Run (the round play button) | Starts a run. It stays disabled until the Start node is connected. See Running a flow. |
The sidebar
The sidebar holds what you can put on the board, in groups that fold away and remember whether they were open:
- Building blocks: Process, Object and Person.
- Connectors: Sentry.
- Procedures and Structs: drop one to run that procedure, or to add a copy of the struct's object. See Procedures and Structs.
- Runs: the flow's runs, newest first.
Drag a tile onto the canvas, or click it to add one in the middle. A new node starts with a name field: type the name and press Enter, or Esc to discard it. A node can't be connected until it has a name.
Adding and connecting
Quick add with the + buttons
Hover a node with nothing leading out of it and press the + beneath it. Under a process it adds the object the process generates; under an object, a process that takes it (a human process, under a person). The + on a link, Insert a step, splits the link with a new process and object.
Drag between handles
Inputs enter at the top of a card and outputs leave from the bottom; each state has handles of its own. While you drag, the nodes you can end on light up. Dragging from one process onto another draws an on failure connection. See Procedural links.
Set up the link
Select a link to choose how its process takes the object (takes, instrument, consumes), whether a state link is an event or a condition, or which states a decision chooses between. Drag the grips on a selected link to route it round other nodes; double-click it to restore the default route.
Configure the node
The gear on a node, or a double-click, opens its settings panel on the right. The panel saves as you type; Esc or × closes it. Drag a card's left or right edge to make it wider.
The context menu
Right-click a node for:
- Zoom in (a flow process) or Unfold (an object), Rename, and Add state on objects;
- Duplicate, a copy without its links, Copy and Delete.
Right-click the empty canvas to Paste. Nodes are deleted only from their button or the menu, never by a key, so a stray keystroke can't remove a step.
Shortcuts
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| Double-click the canvas | Add a process |
| Shift + double-click the canvas | Add an object |
| Double-click a node | Open its settings; zoom into a flow process; open a procedure process's flow |
| ⌘/Ctrl + C, V | Copy the selection; paste it at the pointer, in this flow or another, even in another tab |
| ⌘/Ctrl + Z | Undo |
| Shift + ⌘/Ctrl + Z | Redo |
| Shift-click, or drag a box | Select several nodes |
| Backspace on a selected link | Delete the link |
| Esc | Cancel a name being typed, close a panel or a menu |