Draw a flow in the builder
The palette, the canvas and the panel of a node, how the draft is saved as you work, and the keys that speed it up.
4 min read
The builder is where a flow is drawn: its nodes, the connections between them and the settings of each node. What you draw is the draft of the flow, and requests run it only once it is published. This page is about the parts of the builder and how to work in it; How a flow is built is about what a flow has to contain.
Open the builder
On AI Flows press a row, or create a flow — the builder opens. It is the Builder tab of the flow. Above the canvas stand the tools of the canvas; at the right of the header of the flow, Validate, Publish and the line that says whether the draft is saved.
Changing a flow needs the flows:write permission — Organizations, projects and roles says which roles have it. Without it the builder opens in Live, the reading of the canvas, and the switch to Edit is off.
Add the nodes
Press Add node to open the palette. It files the nodes under the groups of How a flow is built, and its search field finds a node by its name. Drag a node onto the canvas, or press it to add it.
A flow has one entry node, Request. Once it is on the canvas, its row in the palette is turned off.
A frozen node, Http Request unless the service is set up otherwise, is not in the palette at all. A draft that still holds it is not published.
Connect the nodes
Drag from a port of a node to the node that comes next. A port leads to one node: a node with several outcomes has a port for each, and the ports are the branches — Ports and branching.
The canvas refuses a connection that cannot work, and says why: a node pointing at itself, a connection into the entry node, a connection out of a terminal node, a second connection from a port that already has one.
Set up a node
Press a node to open its panel at the right. The panel has the tabs Settings and Metrics; an AI Model node has Connections and Advanced as well.
Settings starts with what the check of the flow found wrong with the node, then the name of the node, then its own settings.
Metrics shows the numbers of the node from the executions of the flow.
Delete node removes the node with its connections. Done, Esc or a click on the empty canvas closes the panel.
How the draft is saved
Every change is saved by itself, a few seconds after you stop. The line beside Publish says where the draft stands — Saving…, the time of the last save, or Save failed — and unsaved beside the name of the flow marks changes that have not reached the server.
Validate and Publish save the draft first. When it cannot be saved, nothing is checked or published.
When somebody else has saved the same draft in the meantime, the builder stops and asks: Reload takes their draft and drops your changes, Overwrite puts yours over theirs.
A draft larger than 256 KB is not saved.
Undo, arrange and look around
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Undo, Redo | Step back and forward through the changes, the settings of a node included |
| Duplicate | Copies the selected nodes in place, with the connections between them |
| Auto layout | Arranges the nodes on the canvas |
| − and + | Zoom out and in. The value between them shows the zoom; press it to reset it |
| Fit | Brings the whole flow into view |
| Show statistics | Writes under each node how many requests passed it and what they spent, at the estimate |
The entry node and a frozen node are not copied.
Keyboard shortcuts
Press ? to see them in the builder.
| Keys | What they do |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/⌘ + Z, Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + Z | Undo, redo |
| Ctrl/⌘ + C, Ctrl/⌘ + V | Copy the selection; paste it, offset from the original |
| Ctrl/⌘ + D | Duplicate the selection in place |
| Delete or Backspace | Delete the selection with its connections |
| Ctrl/⌘ + Click | Add a node to the selection |
| Shift + drag | Select everything inside the box |
| Ctrl/⌘ + A | Select every node |
| Esc | Clear the selection |
The shortcuts do nothing while a text field has the focus.
Check, publish and watch
Validate checks the draft and marks the nodes it found wrong; Publish makes it the next version — Publish, versions and rollback. The switch Edit | Live turns the canvas into a reading of the executions that run: Inspect an execution.
Where to go next
AI flows — how a request finds its flow, and the states of a flow.
How a flow is built — what every flow must have, and every node of the palette.
Publish, versions and rollback — from the draft to the version that runs.
Inspect an execution — what a published flow did with a request.
Execution context and paths — what a path in the settings of a node may read.
Publish checks — every check of the graph and of the settings of a node, with the message the builder shows.