Concepts

Built-in nodes

25 nodes ship with the platform. Each one is data plus behavior — the editor renders its form automatically.

Triggers

Type id	What it does
`trigger.manual`	Starts a run from the editor or `POST /workflows/:id/run`.
`trigger.webhook`	Starts active workflows on `POST /api/hooks/:path` — outputs `{ body, headers, query }`.
`trigger.schedule`	Starts active workflows on a cron schedule in any IANA timezone — outputs `{ cron, timezone, scheduledFor, firedAt }`.

Logic & flow

Type id	What it does
`logic.condition`	Routes items to the `true` or `false` output.
`logic.delay`	Pauses a branch for a duration (up to 120 s); cancellation-aware.
`logic.approval`	Pauses the run until a person approves or rejects it — see Human approval.
`workflow.call`	Runs another saved workflow to completion and returns its output.
`logic.loop`	Runs another saved workflow once per item in a list and collects the outputs in order.

Data & code

Type id	What it does
`data.set`	Sets, renames and composes fields with expressions.
`code.javascript`	Runs JavaScript over the inputs — `$json` is the first input, `return` the output.
`http.request`	Calls any HTTP API; honors per-node timeout and retries.
`postgres.query`	Parameterized SQL against a Postgres database.
`s3.object`	Put, get or delete an object in S3 or any S3-compatible store.

AI

Type id	What it does
`ai.generate`	Text generation through the AI Router — `auto` or a pinned model; reports model, tokens and cost.
`ai.compare`	One prompt to two models, compared side by side on output, cost and latency.
`ai.ensemble`	One prompt across several models, combined as all results, first success or majority vote.
`memory.store`	Saves text into a memory namespace — see Memory & RAG.
`memory.recall`	Semantic search over a memory namespace.
`rag.ingest`	Parses, chunks and indexes a document into a knowledge base.
`rag.query`	Hybrid search over a knowledge base, returning cited chunks.

Integrations

Type id	What it does
`slack.send`	Posts a Slack message through a bot.
`telegram.send`	Sends a Telegram message through a bot.
`email.send`	Sends an email over SMTP.
`github.request`	Calls the GitHub REST API.
`sheets.append`	Appends rows to a Google Sheet (needs an access token with the spreadsheets scope).

Credentials

Nodes that talk to other systems — postgres.query, email.send, github.request, sheets.append, s3.object, slack.send, telegram.send — take an optional Credential. An admin stores the secret once with POST /api/credentials; it is encrypted at rest and decrypted only inside the run, so workflows reference it by id and never carry passwords or tokens in their definition.

How nodes work

A node is a declarative description — its palette entry and parameter form — plus an execute function. Because the parameters are data, DirectStudio renders every node’s configuration form automatically. The full catalog, with every parameter, is available at GET /api/node-types.