Automation workflows

There are two workflow-building surfaces in Embedded, and they serve different people:

• The Automation Workflow editor is where you author the workflow templates that ship with your product. It is opened from the Automations page and edits templates in your workspace, against your workspace connections.
• The Workflow Builder is the white-label, embeddable editor you drop into your own app so a connected user can build and refine their own workflow against their own connections. It has no ByteChef chrome around it — see White-Label Execution.

Both surfaces render the same drag-and-drop canvas as the standard automation editor, so the core mechanics — adding triggers and actions, wiring data pills, flow controls — are documented once under Building workflows. This page focuses on what is specific to the two embedded surfaces.

The Automation Workflow editor

Open the editor by clicking a workflow template (or a project name) on the Automations page. The URL is /embedded/automation-workflows/{workflowUuid}/editor.

The screen has three regions: a collapsible left sidebar for navigating projects and workflows, a header with the breadcrumb and action buttons, and the canvas with a bottom test-output panel.

Header

From left to right the header contains:

Breadcrumb and status badge

The breadcrumb shows the project name followed by a status badge:

• V<n> PUBLISHED — the project has a published version; <n> is the last published version.
• V<n> DRAFT — the project has unpublished changes.

Next to the badge, the workflow selector dropdown lets you switch between the workflow templates in the current project. Each entry shows the workflow label (or its UUID when unlabeled).

Left sidebar

The sidebar lets you move around your projects and templates without leaving the editor:

1. Project selector — a dropdown with Current project, All projects, and every project by name. Choosing a project lists that project's workflows below.
2. New project (+ icon) — opens the project dialog to create a project (Name, Description, Category, Tags).
3. Search workflows — filters the list below by label.
4. Sort (filter icon) — sorts the list by Last edited, Date created, A-Z, or Z-A. Tooltip: Sort workflows.
5. New Workflow — creates an empty workflow (empty inputs, tasks, and triggers) in the selected project and opens it in the editor.
6. Workflow list — each card shows the icons of the workflow's triggers and components, its label, and the last-edited date. Click a card to open that workflow.

Settings menu

The Settings (gear) menu is split into two tabs — Workflow and Project:

Publishing a version

1. Click Publish in the header. Tooltip: Publish the project.
2. In the Publish Project popover, optionally enter a Description (up to 256 characters).
3. Click Publish.

Publishing cuts a new project version and makes the project's templates available to connected users. A toast confirms The project has been published. and the breadcrumb badge flips to V<n> PUBLISHED.

Project version history

Open Settings → Project → Project History to review the project's versions.

Each entry shows the version number (V<n>), the published date, and a status badge (PUBLISHED or DRAFT). The draft entry is not expandable; published entries expand to show their details.

Testing a workflow

• Click Test (or Chat, if the workflow has a chat trigger) to run the current workflow. The bottom output panel opens with the run's results.
• While a run is in progress the button becomes Stop; click it to cancel.
• The Output (chevron) button toggles the last test-execution output panel open and closed.
• Test is disabled until every required workflow input, connection, and component property is set. The button's tooltip explains this when disabled.

The embeddable Workflow Builder

The Workflow Builder is the white-label editor you embed inside your own product (typically in an iframe) so a connected user can build and refine their own workflow. Unlike the Automation Workflow editor, it:

• operates on a connected user's own connections, not your workspace connections;
• is a single-workflow surface — no left sidebar, no project or workflow selector, no settings menu;
• receives its context from your host app through a postMessage handshake rather than from ByteChef navigation.

The embed handshake

When the builder loads inside your app it:

1. Posts an EMBED_READY message to the parent window (restricted to the origins configured in VITE_EMBEDDED_PARENT_ORIGINS; if none are configured it posts to any origin).
2. Waits for your app to reply with an EMBED_INIT message. Until it arrives, the builder shows a loading state.

The EMBED_INIT message carries the parameters that configure the session:

Messages are only accepted from the parent window and, when VITE_EMBEDDED_PARENT_ORIGINS is set, only from an allowed origin.

What the connected user sees

The builder renders the same canvas as the automation editor, with two deliberate differences: the AI copilot and the workflow-inputs panel are hidden. The header contains:

Connections created or picked here belong to the connected user. New connections are created against that user's identity, and connection creation is only offered when connectionDialogAllowed is enabled.

Publishing as a connected user

1. Click Publish in the header.
2. Optionally enter a Description (up to 256 characters) in the Publish Project popover.
3. Click Publish.

A toast confirms The workflow has been published. This publishes the connected user's own workflow instance — it does not change your shipped template.

Relationship between the two surfaces

• You author reusable templates in the Automation Workflow editor and publish the project so those templates are available to connected users.
• A connected user's workflow — created from your template or from scratch — is edited in the embeddable Workflow Builder inside your app, against their connections, and published on their behalf.

For how execution stays isolated and white-labeled, see White-Label Execution.

See also

• Automations — the projects and templates list this editor opens from.
• Building workflows — the shared canvas mechanics used by both surfaces.
• White-Label Execution — how the builder is embedded and branded in your product.