Graph Studio

Cycles, not just steps

Most workflow tools run a list of steps forwards. Graph Studio exists for the case that breaks them: the reviewer finds a problem and the work has to go back. A back edge is a normal edge here, not a special case.

A node is a thread, not a model call

Each node spawns a BB thread, waits for it to go idle, and puts its last message into the graph's state. Your workers therefore show up in the sidebar where you can open them, they inherit the parent thread's environment and worktree, and they run on the provider subscriptions you already have. There is no separate API key and no second account.

Watch it while it runs

The canvas shows the graph executing: which node is working, a clock on the one currently running, an activity line under it, and a link into the worker's own thread while it is still going rather than after it finishes. The header counts finished nodes, steps and tokens; clicking a node lists every attempt with its duration, tokens and result, next to the prompt it was given.

Design and run it from the chat

Ask for a flow in plain words — "build me a flow that reviews and reworks until approved" — and the bundled skill has the agent create, change, explain or start it. A running graph appears in the thread as a live card with the same canvas, and the Graph Studio side panel follows the run beside the chat. The full-screen editor is where you review and fine-tune: nodes, prompts, result fields, edges and limits in one inspector.

Stop and ask a person

A human node pauses the run and waits for your answer. A dialog node keeps one thread open so a worker that interviews you — asking one question, waiting, then the next — stays a conversation instead of degrading into a monologue.

32 templates to start from

Shipped as code and read-only; clone one under a new id to make it yours. They cover the established orchestration patterns — prompt chaining, routing, map-reduce, evaluator–optimizer, supervisor, swarm, state machine, debate — and the library search understands the catalogue's own vocabulary, so looking for orchestrator–worker finds map-reduce.

Combine it with Crew

A flow ends; a Crew is a team that stays. A member node hands a step to a persistent crew member, which keeps its context, worktree and model (see owner-check-loop). A crew member can start a graph with crew_graph_run; a run waiting on a human node shows up in the crew's Needs you.

Edges you can read

Conditions are a small, inspectable language — always, contains, equals, matches, visitsBelow — never arbitrary code, so an edge can be checked before it runs. Nodes declare result fields and edges compare those fields, rather than searching a worker's prose for a keyword. Per-node visit limits, per-visit retries and a per-graph step cap mean a cycle always terminates.

Survives a reload

Runs are checkpointed, so a reload resumes a run instead of re-running finished nodes.

Keep a graph in your repo

Graphs live centrally and are available in every project. To version or share one, export and import it:

bb graph-studio export my-graph > .bb/graphs/my-graph.graph.json
bb graph-studio import .bb/graphs/my-graph.graph.json

Drive it from the command line or from an agent

bb graph-studio graphs [search]
bb graph-studio run evaluator-optimizer "Write the onboarding text"
bb graph-studio status <run-id>

An agent inside a BB thread can drive it too, through the graph_studio_* tools.

Requirements

Requires BB 0.42+ and Plugin SDK 0.5.29+. No extra service, account or API key — runs use the providers BB already has.

The Work templates run their steps on Matt Pocock's skills. Install them first with npx skills add mattpocock/skills; without them those steps fall back to their prompt alone. The Pattern templates need no skills.