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Opening a flow takes over the screen: a toolbar at the top, a node palette on the left, the canvas in the middle, the selected node’s settings on the right, and a validation bar when something is wrong.

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The toolbar

Activate is disabled while there are errors; hovering it says to fix the issues in the top bar first. Saving a draft is always allowed — a half-built flow is a normal thing to leave overnight.

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Canvas and list

A Canvas / List toggle sits under the toolbar, beside a legend of every node type and its colour. Your choice is remembered on that device. Below 768px wide the list view is forced and the toggle, palette and inspector are hidden: the canvas handles are about 10px and drag-to-connect is not a finger workflow. The list view can do everything except wiring by drag.

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Adding nodes

The palette on the left is a permanent rail of every node type you can add, grouped as Message types, Ask & capture, Actions & data and Flow control, with a search box at the top. It collapses and reopens with the panel button. There are two ways to add:
  • Drag a type onto the canvas — it lands where you dropped it.
  • Click it — it lands in the middle of the visible canvas.
Either way the new node is selected, so its settings open immediately.

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Wiring

Unlike an automation, a flow is a real graph: each node stores the key of the node it continues to.
  • Drag from a node’s output port to another node to wire that path. A node with one way out has a single port; a If / else has true and false; a Take a payment has paid and not paid; a Send buttons or Send list has one port per button or row, labelled with its title.
  • Select an edge and press Delete to clear just that path.
  • Select a node and press Backspace or Delete to remove it. Every path that pointed at it is cleared too, so there are no arrows left hanging.
A path left unwired is not an error while you are drafting, but it will be flagged before you can activate.

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The inspector

The right pane shows the selected node’s settings form — the same form the list view uses, so the two cannot drift. With nothing selected it shows the flow’s own settings instead of empty space:
  • When… — the trigger. A message contains a keyword, Customer’s first ever inbound message, or Manual only (no auto-trigger).
  • Keywords (comma-separated) for a keyword trigger.
  • Entry node — which node the run starts on.
A manual flow answers no message on its own. It is started by an automation’s Start flow step, or by another flow’s Connect flow node.

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Node keys

Every node has a key — a short identifier such as welcome or ask_name. It is what every path points at, so it is the node’s real identity. Two nodes with the same key is an error, and the flow will not activate.

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Validation

The bar at the bottom lists every issue, split into errors and warnings. Clicking a node-scoped issue jumps to that node on the canvas and flashes it; a trigger issue is shown on the trigger form instead. Errors stop activation. Among them:
  • No name, no entry node, no nodes at all, or an entry node that does not exist.
  • A duplicate node key.
  • A path that points at a node which is not there, or a required path left empty.
  • A keyword trigger with no keywords.
  • Missing text, missing prompts, a variable name that is not a valid identifier.
  • WhatsApp’s own limits: at most 3 buttons, button titles at most 20 characters, at most 10 list rows across all sections, and the length caps on row titles, descriptions and captions. These are checked here so a send cannot be rejected later for something that was knowable now.
Warnings do not stop activation. The two you will meet most:
  • A node that cannot be reached from the entry node.
  • A Wait of 24 hours or more, which closes WhatsApp’s messaging window — after it, only a template will send unless the customer writes again.

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Import and export

A flow can be exported as JSON from its card on the flows list, and Import in the flows list header reads one back — which is how you copy a flow between workspaces. An imported flow always arrives as a draft, whatever the file says, so you review it before it answers anybody.