Workflows

A workflow is a named, reusable procedure. It teaches Okou how your team does a specific kind of work, so the next person who needs it doesn't have to rewrite the prompt.

The first time you ask Okou to do something, you write a prompt. The second time, you paste the same prompt with small tweaks. By the third time, you're copying a long prompt out of a Notion doc someone called the "team prompt library." That's the moment to save a workflow.

The problem workflows solve

A one-off chat is fine for a one-off task. But almost every team has a backlog of work that recurs — different inputs, same shape:

• A customer writes in → look up their history → draft a reply in their language → log the ticket
• A bug report appears → extract repro steps → classify severity → file a structured issue
• Monday morning → pull last week's numbers → compare to the week before → post a digest

Without workflows, each of these is a 200-word prompt everyone has to remember. With workflows, each is a name: triage-bug-report, weekly-metrics, customer-reply.

A workflow on its own has no schedule and no trigger — it's the procedure. To make it run on its own, attach an automation.

What's in a workflow

No node graph, no YAML config, no triggers section. The instruction usually looks a lot like the chat prompt that worked the first time.

A good description is the difference between a workflow that fires when it should and one that never fires: "triage a customer-facing bug report and file it to GitHub with severity" is better than "do bug stuff."

Ownership and visibility

My Okou: Workflows live in the current workspace. A Private Workflow belongs to the current user. A Public Workflow is shared with members of the workspace; Public does not mean published to the internet. Each execution uses the executing user's Instructions, memory, connected accounts, and permissions. Sharing the procedure does not share those personal resources or private results.

Your same-name Private Workflow takes precedence over a Public Workflow. Use the explicit Workflow ID when you need to identify a particular shared definition. Make private copy gives you a separate version to adapt; later edits do not sync with the original. Another member's Automations are not copied. Creating a Private Workflow does not give you permission to publish or maintain Public Workflows; the existing workspace publication rules still apply.

Legacy Agents: every workflow belongs to one Agent. Teammates also need access to its owning Agent. Copy workflow selects a destination Agent and creates a private fork. The Agent supplies its profile and Instructions, while execution still uses the running member's authorized account access.

See My Okou and legacy Agents for standing Instructions.

Which experience are you using?

These docs cover both experiences. If Settings → Personal → My Okou is available, follow the My Okou steps. If you use an Agents page with New agent, follow the Legacy Agents steps. Availability can differ between members; these docs do not change your experience.

In either experience, you can run several chats or tasks at once, reuse workflows, and share reviewed work with your team. A runtime subagent is an execution tool, not a separate product profile you need to create.

Creating a workflow

Start from the Workflows page

1. Open Workflows. My Okou: choose Create in chat. Legacy Agents: choose New workflow where shown.
2. My Okou: continue in your own chat; no Agent selection is needed. Legacy Agents: select the Agent that should own the workflow.
3. Okou opens a chat with a guided workflow-creation prompt. Describe the outcome, expected inputs, tools, output, and any approval boundary.
4. Review the proposed name, description, instruction, files, and visibility before Okou creates it.

You can also start in an existing chat and ask Okou to turn a task that already worked into a workflow. Keeping the first successful run in the same chat gives Okou concrete inputs, corrections, and output to capture.

My Okou example: the Workflow’s Instructions describe the repeatable job.

What to put in the instruction

Keep credentials out of the instruction and files. Connect the service through Connectors, then review the connected account and grant only the permissions the Workflow needs; in Legacy Agents, also authorize its owning Agent.

Test before automating

1. Run the workflow manually with a representative input.
2. Confirm the executing member has the required account access and permissions; in Legacy Agents, also check the owning Agent's authorization.
3. Inspect the resulting chat for missing context, unexpected writes, and the final output shape.
4. Edit the Instructions or attached files and run it again until the result is repeatable.
5. Add an automation only after the manual run is correct. Start with narrow event filters or a low-frequency schedule, then inspect the first few firings.

Manual verification separates workflow problems from trigger problems: if Run now fails, fix the workflow or its access first; if Run now succeeds but an event never fires, inspect the automation configuration.

How Okou picks a workflow

You don't have to invoke a workflow by name. Okou loads one automatically when an incoming request matches its description. A workflow called customer-reply-draft described as "draft a reply to a customer email using our voice and docs" fires when you forward a customer email — no name required.

To force a specific one, say so: "Use the customer-reply-draft workflow on this email."

Built-in workflows

Okou includes a roster of cross-functional workflows maintained by Okou — research and analysis, finance and accounting, legal and compliance, product, marketing, customer support, and team communication. They're domain procedures, not connector plumbing: each teaches Okou how to handle a recurring kind of work.

A sampler:

• deep-dive — structured research and solution design; gather facts, then explore options
• prd-writing — product requirements with structured problem framing and acceptance criteria
• copywriting — marketing copy across channels (blogs, emails, social, landing pages)
• competitor-matrix — feature comparison matrices, positioning teardowns, win/loss analysis
• customer-reply — empathetic, on-brand replies tailored to channel and urgency
• nda-screening — classify incoming NDAs as GREEN / YELLOW / RED and route them
• status-updates — progress reports and stakeholder updates tailored to any audience

Your own workflows sit alongside these and take precedence when their descriptions match more closely.

When to make one

The honest rule: if you've written substantially the same prompt more than twice — or you can imagine a teammate writing it — save it.

Concrete signals:

• The work has a name your team already uses ("morning brief," "competitor scan")
• The prompt names specific tools, channels, or templates that shouldn't change every run
• The output has a fixed shape (a digest, a draft, a filed issue)
• More than one person needs to trigger it
• You want it to run on a schedule or an event — see Automations

Common patterns

• The intake form. Takes a piece of input (an email, a bug report, a thread) and produces a structured artifact (an issue, a draft, a row).
• The cadence brief. A workflow paired with a scheduled automation that runs daily or weekly and posts somewhere visible.
• The mid-conversation helper. Triggered by @Okou in a channel to do one focused subtask — look up, summarize, classify.
• The composer. Produces a multi-format bundle — blog draft plus social posts plus cards — in one run.
• The event responder. Paired with an event automation: a new email, a merged PR, or a new Notion page starts the run. See Automations.

Pitfalls to avoid

• Too narrow. A workflow that only fits one specific input is brittle. Aim at the shape of the work, not the details of one example.
• Too vague. "Help with marketing" is so broad Okou won't know when to apply it. Be specific in the description.
• Hardcoded credentials. Never paste API keys into an instruction. Use custom connectors instead — the credential stays on the platform, out of the model's reach.
• Buried output shape. State what the artifact should look like: "a numbered list of three items" or "a draft reply under 150 words."
• Forgetting access. A shared Workflow does not grant connector access. Check your connected account, requested permissions, and any Chat account controls available to you. In Legacy Agents, also check the owning Agent's Authorization settings.

What's next

• Attach a trigger with Automations so a workflow runs without you.
• See Agents for who runs a workflow and with which permissions.
• See Permissions for restricting what a workflow can touch.
• See Example workflows for five written end to end.