Overview of Build

The Build area is where you construct your analytic workflow by connecting functionals together on the canvas. This is the main area to build workflows, edit their settings, and manage a workflow’s properties.

Build Interface

The Build interface consists of two main sections: the main canvas area and the properties pane on the right.

Canvas

The canvas is where you…

• Drag and drop functionals
• Connect functionals to one another
• Drag files from your desktop into your workflow
• Add annotations

Properties Pane

The properties pane allows you to…

• Quickly search for and manage your resource files
• View and select functionals currently on the canvas
• Interact with parameters/variables for selected functionals

In addition to the canvas and properties pane, other areas of interest are the canvas properties toolbar, the workflow toolbar, and the canvas toolbar.

Canvas Properties Toolbar

• Hide/Show Ports – Toggles between expanded and collapsed functional inputs and outputs
• Auto Layout – Performs auto layout of functionals on the build canvas
• Connection Layout – Performs auto layout of connections on the build canvas
• Screenshot – Generates an image of the workflow which can be downloaded as an image file
• Zoom Controls – Allows you to adjust the zoom level on the canvas
• Zoom to Extent – Zooms to the extent of the workflow
• Zoom to Selection – Allows you to draw a box and zoom in
• Keyboard Shortcuts – Displays available keyboard shortcuts

Workflow Toolbar

• Close Workflow – Closes the current workflow and returns you to the Build Dashboard
• New Workflow – Opens a new workflow in a new tab
• Save Workflow – Saves the current workflow
• Save As – Saves a copy of the workflow without overwriting the original
• Delete Workflow – Deletes the saved workflow. Only available for saved workflows, and only if you have delete permission
• Import Workflow – Allows the user to import a .brew, .zip, or .ja2 workflow file

• Copy – Copies an item to the clipboard
• Cut – Cuts an item to the clipboard, deleting it from the canvas
• Paste – Pastes an item to the canvas
• Undo – Reverts the last action on the canvas
• Redo – Reverses undo
• Edit Properties – Allows a user to modify workflow properties such as Title, Tags (NOTE: Tagging a submodel with “submodel_util” changes the submodel’s color in search to purple to identify it as a user-designated utility), and folder location
• Statistics – Opens the workflow’s metrics and information page in a new tab. Only available once the workflow is saved
• Sharing Options – Allows a user to modify what individuals or groups have access to the workflow and to what level. Only available after the workflow is saved and before it’s published
• Get REST URL – Displays the URL which can be used to invoke this workflow via the brewlytics API. Only available once the workflow is saved with no unsaved changes
• Export Model – Exports the workflow as a file which can be archived or transferred to another brew instance for import. Only available once the workflow is saved with no unsaved changes
• Export as JSON – Displays the workflow in its JSON representation

Undo/redo, box/lasso multi-select, alignment, and copy/cut/paste all carry over from the legacy builder — they’ve been modernized under the hood, not replaced.

A few more toolbar controls only show up in certain contexts: a brew-ai assistant toggle appears next to the title when the brew-ai feature is enabled for your deployment; Switch to Run view appears only on narrow touch viewports, to hop into the mobile run experience; and a heart-shaped Favorite toggle next to the workflow title marks the workflow as a favorite (distinct from the Canvas Toolbar’s Favorites search panel, below).

Canvas Toolbar

• Quick Search – Opens up a search dialog to quickly find workflows and functionals
• Annotation – Drag and drop the Annotation button onto the canvas to add customizable annotations to your workflow
• Iterator – Drag and drop the Iterator button onto the canvas to add an iterator to your workflow
• Favorites – Allows you to search through your favorite workflows and functionals
• Functionals Menu – Allows you to search through the Functionals Tree
• Workflows Menu – Allows you to search through the Workflows Tree
• Run Workflow – Executes the workflow
• Reset Workflow – Visually resets the state of the workflow
• Workflow Execution History – Displays a table of past execution summaries

Canvas Search Overlay

Quick Search opens an in-canvas search overlay with two modes:

• Quick mode – Searches across all functionals and models. Drag a result straight from the overlay onto the canvas to drop it in.
• Model mode – Searches only the components already placed on the current canvas, finding and highlighting them rather than adding anything new.

Multiple Canvases

The canvas is no longer a single shared instance — the builder, Discover thumbnails, the jobs-detail modal, the execution history modal, and the mobile mini-map can each render their own independent canvas simultaneously. Previously, only one canvas instance could exist at a time; now you can, for example, have the builder open alongside a live Discover thumbnail or a jobs-detail preview without either one stealing the canvas from the other.

Partial & Fine-Grained Execution

Rather than always running a workflow end-to-end, you can select a component and choose to run from, after, or to it. Where the resulting partial run has a dangling connection (an input that would normally come from a component outside the selected range), brewlytics synthesizes an input so the run can proceed.

Live Execution Status

While a workflow runs, each component lights up on the canvas to reflect its current state — RUNNING, DONE, ERROR, or CANCEL — so you can watch progress move through the workflow in real time instead of waiting for the run to finish.

Execution History

The execution history modal lets you browse past job runs without leaving the canvas — select a run to see its per-component outputs, with inline viewers for table, scalar, and geo results. Previously, reviewing a past run meant leaving the builder for an external job dashboard.

Tabbed Execution Log

The execution log is resizable, collapsible, and supports multiple tabs at once, with INFO/WARN/ERROR filtering to narrow down what you’re looking at. Clicking a row in the log selects the corresponding component on the canvas and centers the view on it.