Agents in workflows
Which agents can participate in a pipeline, what happens when one is removed, and how scheduled runs work.
A workflow node can dispatch to two kinds of agents, and both appear in the same picker when you build a pipeline.
Platform-deployed agents
Agents built and deployed in the workspace join the picker under their friendly name — but only while they are deployed and running. An agent that exists but is not live cannot actually receive a dispatch, so it is filtered out of the picker. Deploy the agent first, then add it to the pipeline.
External agents
Agents running outside the platform can participate too, once they are registered in the workspace with their endpoint and (optionally) a credential. They appear in the picker suffixed with (external), and the platform attaches the registered credential on every dispatch to them. See External agents for how registration works.
When an agent is removed
Workflows keep a reference to each agent they dispatch to. If one of those agents is deregistered, every workflow that references it is marked orphaned:
- Orphaned workflows stay visible and editable in the list and detail pages — nothing is deleted.
- Runs are refused with an explanatory error until the pipeline is fixed.
- The workflow reactivates automatically when either the pipeline is edited so every node points at an available agent, or an agent with the same name is registered again.
The console surfaces this state with an orphaned status chip and a banner on
the workflow detail page explaining how to recover. Conversely, an edit that
introduces an unknown agent orphans the workflow on save — the status always
reflects whether every node is currently resolvable.
Before removing an agent, check what depends on it: the platform exposes a usage lookup listing the workflows that dispatch to a given agent, and the console uses it as a delete preflight.
Scheduled runs
Workflows support recurring execution. Choose a frequency when creating the workflow (hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly), or add, change, and remove the schedule later by updating the workflow — under the hood the schedule is a cron expression with a time zone, so API clients can set any recurrence, not just the console presets.
Behavior to know:
- Scheduled runs create ordinary executions — they appear in the executions list and are monitored exactly like manual runs.
- The console presets fire at 09:00 UTC for daily, weekly (Monday), and monthly (1st of the month); hourly fires on the hour.
- Removing the schedule (or deleting the workflow) removes the recurring trigger; no further automatic runs start.
- An invalid cron expression is rejected at save time.
The workflows list shows each workflow's schedule (manual when none), so you
can see at a glance which ones run on their own.