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Chapter 2 — Generate a Workflow

Your first hands-on chapter. By the end, you'll be able to take an existing workflow file (.nbflow) and produce finished videos from it — no scripting, no prompt writing, just running and reviewing.

This is the easiest task in the pipeline. Get comfortable here before moving to variants and creating from scratch.

Chapter at a glance

flowchart LR
    A[Set up<br/>G-Labs + tunnel] --> B[Open<br/>.nbflow]
    B --> C[Run<br/>nodes]
    C --> D[Review<br/>candidates]
    D --> E[Rerun<br/>any failures]
    E --> F[Export<br/>final clips]

A single workflow run from open to export — the minimum loop.

What you'll learn

  • How to start the G-Labs backend and a cloudflared tunnel
  • How to load an existing .nbflow file into PatchWork
  • How to run the Generation Runner
  • How to review candidates in PatchWork and pick the best ones
  • How to rerun individual nodes when something didn't land
  • How to handle B-roll (which runs separately from the main .nbflow)
  • How to export final assets for post-production

Before this chapter

Read Chapter 1 — Foundations. You should know what a workflow is, what a prompt is, what PatchWork is, and who the agents are before starting here.

Sections

  1. Setup & per-session checklist — get G-Labs and the tunnel running
  2. G-Labs Setup — the local backend in detail
  3. Cloudflared Tunnel Setup — quick tunnels (per-session) + named tunnels (permanent URL)
  4. PatchWork overview — the tool you'll be using
  5. PatchWork node types — every node type you'll see
  6. Running a workflow manually through PatchWork — click through the graph node by node
  7. Reviewing in PatchWork — pick candidates, navigate tabs
  8. Rerunning failed nodes — re-roll seeds, edit prompts, single-node reruns
  9. Manual B-roll generation — B-roll runs separately from the .nbflow
  10. Exporting final assets — handoff to post-production

Automation comes later

Once you understand manual generation, Chapter 13 introduces the Generation Runner agent — the automated executor that does all of this in one shot. Learn manual first; automation will make sense after.

Try this

Pick an existing approved workflow (e.g. one from projects/{month}/{brand}/{growth|sales}/approved/) and run it end-to-end.

Steps:

  1. Start G-Labs locally + start a cloudflared tunnel (G-Labs + cloudflared)
  2. Open the .nbflow in PatchWork. Set the G-Labs URL in PatchWork's settings to the tunnel URL
  3. Walk the graph node by node (Running a workflow manually). For each generation node, click Run, wait for candidates
  4. In each Approve gate, pick the strongest candidate (Reviewing in PatchWork)
  5. If any node didn't produce something usable, re-run it (Rerunning failed nodes)
  6. Export the final clips (Exporting final assets)

If you hit:

When you're ready

→ Next: Chapter 3 — Lvl 1-2 Variants. Take a finished workflow and produce a variation of it — a dialogue swap or a wardrobe change. Low risk, auto-approved.