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Workflows

Parameterized commands with placeholder arguments you fill at run time.

A workflow is a saved command with named placeholders — the long incantation you keep reaching into shell history for, turned into a one-click template. Workflows live in Mel Drive as *.workflow.json files under ~/.local/share/mel/drive/.

Anatomy of a workflow

A workflow has a title and a command string. Anywhere the command should take input, you write a placeholder in braces:

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 {url}

In the workflow's detail card, each {argument} renders as a highlighted chip inside the command, and a row of argument chips below the command lists every parameter at a glance. Mel seeds Drive with a sample "Download youtube audio" workflow on first run so you can see the shape immediately.

Using a workflow

  1. Open the tools panel (ctrl+\) and switch to the Drive view.
  2. Click the workflow — its detail card opens in the center panel, showing the command with its argument chips.
  3. Click the command. Mel inserts it into the active pane's prompt with the first {argument} placeholder selected, so you can immediately type the real value over it.
  4. Fill in the value and run.

That first-argument selection is the whole trick: insert, type, enter. No clicking around to find the part you need to change.

Creating and editing

  • Create: + menu in the Drive header → Workflow.
  • Edit: click the ✎ icon on the workflow's detail card to open it in the editor.

Write placeholders as {name} directly in the command text — anything in braces becomes an argument chip. Since workflows are plain JSON files on disk, you can also create or edit them with any editor, or check them into a dotfiles repo.

Hover previews

Like every Drive object, hovering a workflow in the tree shows a preview card with its title, the command snippet, and when it was last edited — handy when you have several similar workflows and can't remember which is which.

Workflows vs prompts vs notebooks

  • Use a workflow for a shell command you run with different values.
  • Use a prompt for a reusable agent query.
  • Use a notebook for documentation that mixes prose with commands.

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