Nodes are the building blocks of recipes in Neurocad. You connect them on a canvas to define processing workflows for EDA, mechanical design, and integration tasks.
What is a node?
A node is a self-contained step in your recipe with specific inputs and outputs:
- Inputs appear on the left side of the node.
- Outputs appear on the right side of the node.
Each node performs a specific action - starting the recipe from a trigger, uploading a file, extracting an image, generating a 3D model, posting a Slack message, and so on. Nodes take input from upstream nodes or from direct user entry, then produce outputs that can feed into the next step.
Every recipe begins with a trigger node. The trigger decides when the recipe runs and what payload the rest of the graph receives.
Adding nodes to the canvas
There are a few ways to add nodes:
- Open the sidebar palette on the left. Nodes are grouped into categories: Triggers, Connect, EDA, MDA, and Tools. Notes have their own sidebar button outside the palette.
- Drag a node from the palette onto the canvas to place it where you want.
- Click a node in the palette to drop it at a default position.
- Filter the palette by input or output handle color (EDA, Mechanical, Generic) using the filter controls at the top of the palette - this hides nodes that can't connect to that handle type.
- Right-click anywhere on the canvas to open a context menu with the full categorized node list at that position.
- Drag from an open handle into empty space to open the same node menu where you released, so you can drop a follow-up node and wire it inline.
- Disabled nodes (coming soon) appear dimmed in the palette and cannot be added.
Connecting nodes
To build a workflow, connect nodes by drawing edges between their handles:
- Click and drag from an output handle on one node to an input handle on another node.
- The connection appears as a colored edge between the two nodes.
- Handles are color-coded by engineering domain so you can identify valid connections at a glance.
- The canvas enforces type compatibility - you can only connect handles whose types and subtypes are compatible.
If you drop a connection on a node with multiple inputs, the canvas picks the best matching handle automatically.
Node properties
Click a node to select it. The right-side panel shows its configurable surface, organized as a top-to-bottom flow:
- Inputs - Panel-bound input fields. You can wire upstream data into these or fill them in directly. Each row shows a colored dot for its handle type.
- Configuration - The node's own parameters (operation/resource pickers, mode toggles, prompt text, file-input role mapping, schedule expressions, channel pickers, etc.).
- Outputs - The typed output handles the node produces, with the engineering domain and subtype shown next to each.
- Credentials - When a node needs one (Slack, GitHub, Library), the panel shows a credential picker tied to its connect type.
Visibility of individual fields is conditional on other parameters - e.g. a GitHub node's available file-path picker depends on the selected resource and operation.
Handle types
Color signals engineering domain:
- EDA (magenta) - The edge carries an EDA artifact (library, schematic, netlist, PCB, gerber, SPICE, wire diagram).
- Mechanical (yellow) - The edge carries an MDA artifact (3D model, drawing, assembly, sketch).
- Generic (neutral) - Everything else: JSON data, asset references, artifact references, share-link URLs, trigger payloads.
Running nodes
When a node is selected and ready to run, the property panel shows a run button at the bottom. The button label depends on what the node is:
- Triggers without listen support (Manual) show Run from this trigger - submits a manual execution starting at that trigger.
- Triggers with listen support (Slack, GitHub) show Listen - waits for a real inbound event so you can capture a sample payload to design against. Click again to cancel.
- Action nodes show Run step - executes the recipe up to and including this node, so you can iterate on a single step without rerunning the whole graph.
You can run a single step or the full recipe end to end. Both paths use the same execution pipeline, so results are consistent whether you're running one step or running the complete workflow.