Action Flows

A flow is a graph: nodes wired together, running from a trigger to an end, built by dragging in a window of its own. It is the answer to "one shortcut that does four things in order, with a condition in the middle".

The rule the whole thing rests on is that a node returns items per output port, and a port that comes back empty kills that branch. There is no separate control token — which is why If, Switch and Filter are all the same mechanism seen from different angles.

Flows are files

Each flow is its own file, so one can be handed to somebody else. An imported flow is reviewed before it runs: the screen lists every capability it wants — the clipboard, Accessibility, the network, running commands — worked out from the nodes actually in the document rather than from anything the file claims about itself.

A flow whose nodes this version does not understand opens read-only and cannot be armed. A flow half of whose steps were silently skipped would do something nobody wrote.

To write

• The node catalogue
• Triggers: shortcuts, manual, and running one from the Shortcuts pane
• Editing, testing with Run, and what the editor asks before closing
• How many flows a free copy may arm — see Pro