---
title: "Workflows"
section: "Builder Guide"
canonical_url: "https://support.buildwithhq.com/builder-guide/workflows.html"
reviewed_at: "2026-09-14"
authority: Official
---

# Workflows

Automate multi-step processes on your data: branching, approvals, waits, and AI steps.

## In brief

- **Audience:** Builders
- **Skill level:** Intermediate
- **Runs:** In the background

Workflows carry out multi-step processes automatically — when a record is created, when a date passes, or when someone kicks one off by hand. Steps run in the background and every run keeps a complete history.

## Step types at a glance

| Step | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Update / create records | Change data as part of the process |
| Conditional branch | Take different paths depending on field values |
| Wait | Pause for a duration or until a relative date |
| Require approval | Stop and hold until an authorized person signs off; the affected record locks for editing while it waits |
| AI action | Send content to the AI fleet for summarization or extraction, and use the result downstream |
| Notify | Send a notification to a user or role |

## Editing a live workflow

Editing a workflow never disturbs runs already in flight. Your edit becomes a new version; new runs use it, and existing runs finish safely on the definition they started with.

## Watching runs

Every run shows its step-by-step history — what ran, what it changed, and where it's waiting. Failed steps retry automatically before surfacing as failures you can inspect.

Tip

Start with one small workflow that saves ten minutes a day, confirm it behaves, then grow it. Big first workflows are where debugging time goes to live.

---

Capability review: 2026-09-14. [View the canonical guide](https://support.buildwithhq.com/builder-guide/workflows.html).