Workflows and Versions
An agent’s expert knowledge is its numbered rules, written in plain language. A workflow turns those rules into a graph of steps that the agent follows on every run: gather the facts it needs, apply each rule, answer yes/no questions, and write the output fields. Medbot checks every workflow before it can go live, and keeps each saved workflow as a numbered version, so you always know which version produced a result.
An agent without a workflow still runs, from its prompt and expert knowledge alone.
Step kinds
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Start | Every run begins here. Connect it to the first steps. |
| Data | Gathers facts from the record. Its Source is the Patient record, a Dataset or a Tool. |
| Reason | Applies one rule. |
| Decision | Asks a yes/no question, for example Is the latest HbA1c above 7%?, and follows the Yes or No branch. Steps reached only through the branch not taken are skipped. |
| Subagent | A step other agents may call. Exposing a step as a subagent is saved now and used in a later release. |
| Output | Writes the output fields. |
| End | Every path must reach End. |
Each step can record which rule it came from (From rule), the values it Reads, and the values it Produces.
Generating a workflow
Medbot generates a workflow from the expert knowledge when you create an agent (see Create an Agent). To generate one later, click Generate workflow on the agent card, on the agent’s Workflow tab, or in the editor. Regenerate from expert knowledge in the editor replaces the current graph with a new one; it asks first if you have unsaved edits.
The workflow editor
Open the editor from Open in the editor on the agent’s Workflow tab, or go to medbot.me/agents/<agent>/workflow. People who cannot edit the agent see it read-only.
- Canvas: the steps and their connections, drawn as animated dashed arrows in the direction the run flows. Decision branches are labelled Yes or No; click a label to switch it. Errors are highlighted in red, and proposed changes in amber.
- Add step palette: click a step kind, or drag it onto the canvas, then drag from a step’s handle to another step to connect them. Below the palette, the Expert knowledge list shows the numbered rules.
- Tidy lays the graph out again, Left to right or Top to bottom.
- The side panel has three tabs: Inspector, Checks and Proposals.
Inspector
Select a step to edit its Name, Instruction (or Question for a decision), From rule, Source (data steps), Reads and Produces, or click Remove step. Select a connection to set its Branch (Yes or No) when it leaves a decision, or click Remove connection.
Checks
Every change is checked straight away. The banner says Valid: every check passes, Valid, with N warnings, or N errors; fix before making it live. The twelve checks are:
- Every step has its own id
- Every connection points at a step that exists
- One Start, with nothing before it
- One End, with nothing after it
- No loops
- Every step is reachable from Start
- Every step reaches End
- Both branches of every decision are labelled
- Every data step names a source
- Every output field is produced by a step
- Every produced output field reaches an output step
- No step reads a value nothing before it produces
Errors (checks 1 to 8) block Make live. The last four raise warnings, which do not: a data step without a source reads the patient record, and an output field no step produces will be empty.
Click Select on an issue to highlight it. Some issues have a quick fix: Remove this connection for a loop, Connect to End for a dead end, and Connect from Start for an unreachable step.
AI proposals
Click Ask AI to propose fixes on the Checks tab. Medbot proposes changes (Remove connection, Add connection, Label branch, Map output field or Insert step), each with the rule it relates to and its rationale. The Proposals tab shows whether the workflow would be valid after all of them.
- Apply or Skip each proposal, or Apply all and verify.
- To steer Medbot, type in Ask for a different fix (for example Keep the eGFR check before the decision) and click Propose again.
Try on one patient
Try on one patient runs a saved version that passes every check on one patient you choose, without making it live. It runs in the background; follow it on the agent’s Agent Runs tab.
Versions
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Editable. Saving again overwrites the newest version while it is a draft. |
| Live | The version every new run follows. An agent has at most one live version, and it cannot be changed or archived. |
| Archived | A previous version, kept for reference. |
In the editor:
- Save as version N saves your edits. If the newest version is a draft it is overwritten; otherwise a new version is created.
- Make live makes the saved version live, after Medbot checks it again. It is disabled until you have saved your edits and fixed every error. If the agent is set to Re-run on every new version and has a validation dataset, a validation run starts.
Every run records the workflow version it followed, so results on the Live calls, Validation and Results tabs can be compared by version.
The Workflow and Versions tabs
On the agent page:
- The Workflow tab shows the live version (or that nothing is live yet), any newer draft and its errors, the number of steps and rules, and a read-only view of the graph. It warns you when the expert knowledge has changed since the version was saved.
- The Versions tab lists every version with its status, when it was saved, its checks and note, and Open, Make live and Archive (drafts only). Frozen releases and their evaluations are in the agent’s Registry.