Start here · about 25 minutes

Build your first real workflow

A research → draft → review pipeline: two agents working in sequence, a critic checking their output, you approving the final result — and a budget making sure nothing runs away.

The finished workflow running on the canvas, with agent badges live on the active nodes
The finished pipeline mid-run — agent badges show who's working where.

1. Lay out the graph

  1. Create a workflow named research-review and drag on: Input, two Agent nodes, one Human Approval node, and an Output.
  2. Wire them: Input → agent "researcher" → agent "writer" → Human Approval → Output.
  3. Notice the Problems panel: it flags the unconfigured agents. Maestro validates before running — you can't launch a broken graph by accident.

2. Configure the researcher

  1. Select the first Agent node. In the inspector, set its role prompt: "You are a meticulous researcher. Gather relevant facts for the given brief and return them as a bulleted list with one-line sources."
  2. Set binding to Route by task type: text-generation — the matrix picks the model.
  3. Set max iterations to 4 and leave autonomy on Auto.

3. Configure the writer

  1. Role prompt: "You are a clear, plain-spoken writer. Turn the research notes into a 300-word draft. No exclamation marks."
  2. Bind it to a fixed model if you have a favorite for prose — fixed bindings and routed bindings mix freely in one workflow.

4. Add the approval gate and a budget

  1. Select the Human Approval node. When the run reaches it, Maestro pauses that branch and shows you the draft with Approve / Reject / Edit. Your edit — not the agent's — is what flows onward if you change anything.
  2. Select the canvas background to open workflow settings, and set a run budget: $0.50. If the run ever hits it, execution pauses at a safe point and asks you — it never overruns silently.

5. Run it and read the live map

  1. Press Run ▶ and give it a brief ("three surprising facts about sea otters, with sources").
  2. Watch the researcher's badge appear on its node — cyan while it calls the model, violet while it thinks. The component tree mirrors the same state.
  3. When the approval request appears, read the draft, tweak a sentence with Edit, and approve.
  4. Open Runs → this run. The Gantt timeline shows both agents' spans, your approval pause, and per-node token costs. Click any bar for exact inputs and outputs.
Make it parallel. Add a second researcher and a Join node: independent branches run concurrently up to your concurrency limit, and the live map shows both badges working at once.
Reusable pieces. Select the two research nodes, group them into a frame, and convert the frame into a sub-workflow — it becomes a single node you can drop into any other workflow.

Where to go next