Tines 3B builds automations for you from a plain-language description. You explain what you want in your own words, Tines 3B builds it on a private draft, and you push it live when it's ready. This guide walks you through creating your first workflow, explains the draft and live branches that keep your changes safe until you're happy with them.
What a workflow is
A workflow is an automation made up of one or more steps. Each step runs a small piece of code (shell, Python, TypeScript, or a React app for pages people can open), and data flows from one step to the next. You don't have to write any of that yourself.
You describe the outcome you want, and Tines 3B builds the steps, wires them together, and explains what it did.
Start with a prompt
Open the space where you want the workflow to live. You'll see a composer with the prompt "What do you want to do?" This is where every workflow begins.
To create your first workflow:
Describe what you want. Type a plain-language description of the automation, for example "Every morning, check our status page and post a summary to the team Slack channel."
Send it. Press Enter, or select the send button.
Watch Tines 3B build. Tines 3B opens the new workflow and starts working. It writes the steps, connects them, and narrates its progress in the chat as it goes.
Note: Your workflow starts with a placeholder name and gets a real one once Tines 3B understands what it does. You can rename it at any time.
Ways to shape your first prompt
The composer has a few extras that help when you're not sure where to start:
Plan mode. Have Tines 3B think through an approach with you before it takes action. It's a good fit for larger or fuzzier ideas.
Voice mode. Describe your workflow out loud instead of typing.
Files. Drag and drop, paste, or attach files (like a sample spreadsheet, a PDF, or a screenshot of a form you want to recreate) so Tines 3B has something concrete to work from.
Suggestions. Type "/" in an empty composer to open a menu of getting-started prompts, such as "Help me write a workflow brief," "Ask me questions to understand my workflow," and "Suggest workflows based on my connectors."
You'll keep chatting with Tines 3B after this first message too. Ask it to add a step, change behavior, test with sample data, or add notifications, and it updates the workflow in place.
For help with writing your prompts, check out our best practice guide here.
Understand draft and live branches
Here's the important part: nothing you build in chat is live yet. Tines 3B keeps your work-in-progress separate from the version that actually runs, so you can experiment freely.
Draft branches hold your changes while you build and test. Your first workflow starts on a draft branch named "First draft." You can have several draft branches on the same workflow.
The live branch is the published version that runs for real. In the branch selector it shows as "Live" (and as version numbers like v1 or v2 once you've pushed live a few times).
The branch selector at the top of the workflow shows which one you're viewing. A draft shows its name, and the live version shows a live indicator.
Why the split matters
The difference between a draft and the live branch is more than a label. It changes what actually happens:
Drafts get their own storage. A draft branch works against its own isolated copy of any stored data, so testing can't disturb what the live workflow relies on. That draft data is discarded when the branch is deleted or pushed live.
This is what makes it safe to keep chatting, break things, and try ideas: none of it touches the running workflow until you decide.
Push your workflow live
When your draft has changes worth publishing, a green push live button appears in the branch selector. Pushing live promotes your draft to the live main branch, and from that point the live version reflects your changes.
To publish, its simple - press push live.
In the background, Tines 3B runs a quick preflight check. If the workflow has step tests, it runs them and flags any that fail, giving you the choice to fix them or push live anyway. Confirm, and your draft becomes the new live version.
Note: You'll need push-live permission in the space. If you don't have it, the button is disabled.
If your space syncs with a git repository, you'll see a Sync button instead of Push live. In that setup you sync the draft to the remote and merge it there, rather than publishing directly from Tines 3B.
Manage your branches over time
As you build more, the branches page becomes your home base for work in progress. It lists your draft branches until they're pushed live, so you can jump back into anything you started. A few things you can do from there and from the branch selector:
Fork as a branch. Start a new draft from the live version or from an earlier point in history to try an alternative approach.
Browse history. Step back through saved versions of a workflow to see how it changed.
Tidy up. Clear out stale branches that have had no chats or runs in the last 30 days to keep things uncluttered.
Putting it together
Your first workflow follows a simple loop: describe what you want in chat, let Tines 3B build it on a draft, run and refine it while it stays safely off to the side, and push it live when it's ready. Because drafts and the live version are kept apart, you can keep iterating in chat with the confidence that the running workflow only changes when you say so.
Now that you've pushed your workflow live, check out how to make iterative improvements to your workflow here.