Workflow Tools

Overview

From Copilot or a connected AI app, an AI can build a chat workflow from a plain description, or change an existing one, without you placing a single card. It reads Yaplet's workflow guide, writes the whole workflow as a plan — what starts it and its steps in order — has Yaplet check that plan, and only then builds it. No AI model runs inside these actions: the AI you talk to writes the plan, and Yaplet checks and saves it with the same rules as the Flow editor. The AI looks the actions up with find_actions and runs each one with the run tool for its kind — see MCP Server.

An AI never switches a workflow on. Everything it builds is created switched off; you review it in the editor and switch it on yourself.

In Copilot, every change and delete waits for your Confirm first; a delete gets a red card, because it cannot be undone. Each one is recorded in the Audit Log as AI change or AI delete or send.

Permission required:Workflows — the same permission that opens the brand's Workflows page. The person the connection runs as also needs the Copilot permission.

Its own login area. An app connected through the browser login needs the Workflows area (copilot:workflows) ticked on the login screen. If you connected the app before workflow tools existed, reconnect it once and tick that area.

Brand access applies here. Every action works only on the brands you may work in, exactly as in your dashboard. A workflow that belongs to no brand can only be reached by someone who may work in every brand.

Actions

Action	Level	What it does
`workflows.guide`	Read	The how-to for chat workflows, one section at a time: overview, steps, triggers, values, plan format, recipes, alternatives (when something simpler than a workflow fits better) and security (how to connect a workflow safely to your own systems).
`workflows.brand_facts`	Read	What a workflow for one brand can use: the brand's language, your forms, its workflows, its API tools, whether it has Facebook / Instagram pages or a phone agent, its widgets, whether visitor identity verification was ever set up, and the value names a workflow may not use.
`workflows.get_plan`	Read	Reads one workflow as an editable plan, with whether it is switched on and its editor link. Secret values show only as set or not set.
`workflows.check_plan`	Read	Checks a plan without saving anything: errors, warnings, a plain-English walk-through, the exact request each Call an API step will send, and a to-do list.
`workflows.runs`	Read	How one workflow has been running: its runs of the last 1–90 days (30 by default) counted by state and by how they ended, the starts its rules held back and why, and its failed steps in the last 24 hours.
`workflows.create`	Change	Builds a new workflow for a brand from a plan. It is always created switched off, and the answer links it in the editor.
`workflows.update`	Change	Replaces a switched-off workflow's name, trigger and every step with a new plan.
`workflows.update_step`	Change	Changes the settings of one step of a switched-off workflow. Only the settings sent are replaced; every other step stays as it is.
`workflows.duplicate`	Change	Copies a workflow — its trigger, steps and stored secrets — as a new switched-off workflow, in the same brand or in another one.
`workflows.switch_off`	Change	Switches a workflow off: visitors stop getting it, and its runs in progress end.
`workflows.delete`	Delete or send	Deletes one switched-off workflow for good, with its steps and stored secrets; the conversations it took part in stay. The AI must repeat the workflow's exact name, and the answer names any other workflow whose Start a workflow step started this one.

Workflows can also be listed and fetched with the Data Access Tools (record type workflows), and get_account_state reports how many are switched on and which ones are failing.

How It Works

From a description to a workflow

Read the guide

workflows.guide — the AI reads the sections it needs: always steps, triggers, values and plan format; security before any call to your own systems; recipes for proven patterns.

Read the brand's facts

workflows.brand_facts — the brand's forms, workflows, API tools and channels, with the ids a plan needs.

Write a plan

The whole workflow as an outline: its name, what starts it, and the steps in order. Buttons, Conditions and Call an API steps hold the steps of their own branches.

Check until it passes

workflows.check_plan — the AI fixes every error and checks again until the plan passes, weighs every warning, and shows you the walk-through and the to-do list.

Build it, switched off

workflows.create saves the new workflow switched off and returns its editor link. An existing workflow changes with workflows.update or workflows.update_step instead.

Switch it on yourself

Open the link, review the workflow on the canvas, and switch it on — with Publish in the editor, or the Active switch on the brand's Workflows page.

Calls to an endpoint that does not exist yet

When a workflow must call your own system and that endpoint is not built yet, or its address is not known, the AI writes the Call an API step as a draft: no address, plus a description of what the call must do. In the editor, the step's panel shows that description under What this call must do (written by the AI), with a Remove action, and the card reads Not set up yet — enter the address.

The check lists the exact request each call will send — that is the contract the endpoint must meet, so hand it to whoever builds it. Type the address and any secret into the step in the editor, never into the chat. A workflow cannot be switched on while any Call an API step has no address.

What the check refuses and what it warns about

A plan with errors is refused, and nothing is saved. Besides mistakes in the steps themselves, the check refuses:

< or > in any text
an API address that looks like a placeholder, such as example.com or yourshop… — the AI writes a draft instead
an http:// address — calls go to https:// addresses only

A plan with warnings can be built, but each warning is worth reading:

an API call that sends visitor data without the Yaplet signature or a secret header
a value {{ name }} that nothing fills in
text on a Buttons step, which only Facebook and Instagram show
buttons with nothing written above them
placeholders such as "Link to …" that a visitor would see

In the dashboard's Copilot

On the brand's Workflows page, Create with AI opens Copilot with the start of a request for a new workflow for that brand already typed in. Finish the sentence and send it. A passing build creates the workflow switched off, and the answer links it.
In the workflow editor, Edit with AI opens Copilot to change the workflow on screen. Copilot sees the canvas as it is, unsaved edits included, but never saves that workflow itself. Under its passing check, Apply to canvas puts the change — steps, trigger and name — on the canvas. Nothing is saved until you press Save, and Undo in the toast takes the change back.

Not sure what to ask for?Workflow ideas and recipes lists proven patterns — what each one does, what starts it and which steps it uses — and when something simpler than a workflow fits better.

What an AI Cannot Do Here

Switch a workflow on. There is no action for it. A person reviews the workflow in the editor and switches it on there.
Change a switched-on workflow. The change is refused while visitors can get the workflow. The AI asks you whether to switch it off first — it then starts for nobody until someone switches it on again — or duplicates it, changes the copy, and leaves the swap to you.
Delete a switched-on workflow. Switch it off first. Each delete names one workflow.
Save the workflow you have open in the editor. In Copilot, a change to that workflow always goes through Apply to canvas and your own Save.
Show what a run collected from a visitor. workflows.runs counts runs and failures; the answers visitors gave are on the workflow's Runs view.

Example Prompts

"Build a workflow for my brand that asks visitors for their email address before the chat starts."
"Visitors keep asking where their order is, and my team spends hours answering. What should I set up?" (the AI reads the guide's alternatives section and chooses between a workflow and an API tool — for a one-sentence lookup like this, usually an API tool)
"Change my lead qualification workflow so it also asks for the company size."
"Which of my workflows failed in the last 24 hours, and why?" (uses get_account_state, then workflows.runs)
"Copy my returns workflow into my second brand."