Rule Chain Designer

One of the four homegrown components of the Commercial Edition. Orchestrate RuleGo rule chains visually — booking entries, notifications, and third-party writes after approval are just a matter of dragging nodes and drawing connections, with no hand-written rule chain JSON.

Why an Approval Platform Needs a Rule Chain Designer

The automation node can invoke any RuleGo rule chain, but in the open-source edition rule chains can only be hand-written JSON. gflow closes that gap: a rule chain is a process too — and can be dragged out just like one.

Process Designer: how the approval flows (people + routing)
Rule Chain Designer: what the system does (automated actions)
The two connect seamlessly through the automation node

Designer Capabilities

• Drag-and-drop orchestration: node palette → canvas connections, the same interaction model as the Process Designer
• Node ecosystem: all RuleGo standard components are available — data transformation, scripts, databases, message queues, email, HTTP calls, and more
• Online debugging: validate instantly via the rule chain test API — feed in a sample message and inspect each node's output
• Deployment toggle: the disabled flag controls whether a rule chain takes effect, updated on save; the list page shows versions and run records
• Tenant isolation: rule chains are isolated by tenant_id, consistent with the process engine's execution pools

Integration with Processes

Drag an "Automation" node into the Process Designer and select a rule chain you have already orchestrated:

{
  "type": "automation",
  "name": "Expense auto-booking",
  "configuration": {
    "targetId": "expense_auto_book"
  }
}

When the approval reaches that node → the engine invokes the rule chain → booking, notifications, and ERP write-backs all happen automatically. Conversely, nodes inside a rule chain can also initiate approval processes via the REST API — processes drive automation, and automation can start processes too.

AI Agent Integration

Rule chains can include AI nodes (built on rulego-components-ai); combined with AI Agent management you get the "approval + AI + automation" combo: AI pre-screens → low risk goes straight through automation → high risk is routed to human countersign.

Open-Source Edition Note

The engine-level automation node is open source (just configure it per the node type overview); the visual designer UI is part of the gflow Commercial Edition (delivered as source code; see Pricing).