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The Tools

An intro-level tour of the tools you'll actually open and use. Each one gets a dedicated chapter or page later — this is just so you know what they're for when you hear them mentioned.

flowchart LR
    A[You / Claude] --> M[The Manager]
    M --> R[Generation Runner]
    R --> G[G-Labs<br/>local backend]
    G --> N[NanoBanana 2]
    G --> V[Veo 3.1]
    R --> R2[Cloudflare R2<br/>storage]
    M --> P[PatchWork<br/>web app]
    P --> G2[G-Labs<br/>via tunnel]
    T[cloudflared tunnel] -.public URL.-> G

PatchWork

The visual workflow editor. A web app where workflow files (.nbflow) get opened, edited, and reviewed.

  • What you do here: open a generated .nbflow to see the image and video candidates, pick the best one for each scene, rerun individual nodes
  • URL: https://patchwork-33m.pages.dev/
  • Looks like: a graph editor — boxes (nodes) connected by lines (links). Each box is a prompt, a media file, a generation step, or an approval gate
  • You'll use it: every time you review the output of a Generation Runner pass

Detailed walkthrough in Chapter 2's PatchWork section.

The Generation Runner

The headless executor. Takes a .nbflow file and produces all the images and videos described inside it.

  • What it does: calls NanoBanana 2 for image gens, Veo 3.1 for video gens, retries failures, runs visual QA, auto-reruns flagged outputs, uploads everything to R2, exports a -generated.nbflow with all the URLs baked in
  • You don't run it manually — you ask Claude to run it on a specific .nbflow, and the Manager invokes it for you
  • Takes: 5-30 minutes depending on workflow size

Detailed walkthrough in Chapter 2's Generation Runner section.

G-Labs

The local generation backend. Runs on your machine on port 8765. Proxies generation calls to the actual AI model APIs.

  • What it does: receives requests from the Generation Runner (or PatchWork), routes them to NanoBanana 2 or Veo 3.1, returns results
  • You start it once per session before any generation work
  • Health check: http://localhost:8765/health returns 200 OK when it's up

Setup walkthrough in Chapter 2's G-Labs section.

cloudflared tunnel

A temporary public HTTPS URL that exposes your local G-Labs to the public PatchWork web app.

  • Why you need it: PatchWork lives on a public domain (patchwork-33m.pages.dev); browsers won't let it talk to localhost:8765 directly. The tunnel solves this
  • How you start it: one command — cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:8765. The Manager auto-starts this when needed
  • URL changes every session — note the new URL each time and update wherever it's referenced

Cloudflare R2

Object storage where every reference image and every generation output lives.

  • What it holds: avatar reference sheets, product photos, every image NanoBanana produces, every clip Veo produces
  • URL format: https://pub-....r2.dev/<path>.png — public CDN URLs
  • You don't manage it directly — the Generation Runner uploads things to R2 automatically and updates the .nbflow with the resulting URLs

The version registry

A single JSON file (reference/version-registry.json in the project repo) that tracks every workflow's current version, status, and fan-out state.

  • Why it matters: the canonical record of "what's where" — what's in testing, what's approved, which accounts have shipped, what version was last touched
  • You typically don't edit it manually — the agents update it after every meaningful change
  • You'll consult it: when working with multiple workflows or coming back to a project after a break

The master Google Sheets tracker

A dashboard synced from the project files to a Google Sheets spreadsheet. Used for at-a-glance project state across many workflows.

  • What's in it: per-workflow status rows, version history, link to the latest .nbflow in Drive
  • How it stays current: the tracker-sync skill scans your projects and updates the Sheets tabs

When you're ready

→ Next: Working in This Pipeline — operational ground rules around security, cost, and concurrent work.