Workflows
Multi-step processes that span hours or days
Long-running business processes with human-in-the-loop approvals, automatic retries, and full execution history. Workflows survive infrastructure restarts and never lose state.
Capabilities
Durable Execution
State persists across restarts. Workflows never lose progress.
Multi-Step Pipelines
Chain operations with branching logic, conditional paths, and error handling.
Human-in-the-Loop
Pause workflows for manual approval. Resume when a human clicks "approve" or "reject".
Automatic Retries
Failed steps retry automatically with configurable backoff. Transient errors don't break your process.
Instance Tracking
Monitor workflow instances: queued, running, paused, errored, or complete. Full visibility.
Execution History
See every step, every decision, every retry. Debug complex processes with confidence.
Use Cases
Why It Matters
- True durability. Not "mostly reliable" but actually persistent.
- Human-in-the-loop enables real business processes, not just code
- Automatic retries handle the chaos of real-world integrations
- Enterprise infrastructure without the ops burden
How It Works
Workflows in Runwork are durable, long-running processes designed for business operations that span minutes, hours, or even days. Unlike simple automations that execute immediately and complete, workflows maintain state across time, handle failures gracefully, and can pause for human decisions before continuing.
A workflow is a series of steps that execute in sequence or parallel. Each step can query your entities, call integrations, or invoke AI agents. The key difference from automations is durability: if the infrastructure restarts mid-execution, your workflow picks up exactly where it left off. No lost state, no duplicate operations.
Human-in-the-loop approval is built in. When a workflow reaches an approval step, it pauses and notifies the designated approver via email, Slack, or in-app notification. The approver reviews the context, clicks approve or reject, and the workflow continues down the appropriate path. This enables real business processes like expense approvals, contract reviews, or hiring decisions—not just automated code.
Creating workflows follows the same conversational pattern as everything in Runwork. Tell the Work Assistant: "When a contract is uploaded, extract the key terms, send it to legal for review, and if approved, create the customer record and notify sales." Runwork generates the workflow with all the necessary steps, approval gates, and error handling.
Every workflow instance is tracked from start to finish. You can see which instances are queued, running, paused for approval, errored, or complete. The full execution history shows every step taken, every decision made, and every retry attempted. When something goes wrong, you know exactly what happened and can replay the workflow from any point.
Don't want to start from scratch? Runwork lets you import n8n workflows directly. With over 8,000 community-built workflow templates available in our recipe library, you can find proven automation patterns for everything from lead nurturing to invoice processing—and have them running as full Runwork apps in minutes.