How to create your first workflow

This guide walks you through building your first automated workflow in PixelFiddler. By the end, you will have a working pipeline that watches for new uploads, transforms them, and saves the results — all without writing a single line of code.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• A PixelFiddler account with at least one storage connected — see Upload your first photo if you need to get started
• At least one image in your storage to use for testing

What is a workflow?

A workflow is a series of steps that PixelFiddler runs automatically whenever a specific event happens. For example, every time you upload a new product photo, a workflow can resize it, convert it to WebP, and save the optimized version to a separate folder — instantly, without any manual effort.

You build workflows visually by placing nodes on a canvas and connecting them with lines. Each node represents one step: a trigger that starts the workflow, an operation that processes the image, or an output that saves the result.

Step 1: Open the workflow editor

1. In your dashboard sidebar, click Workflows
2. Click the Create Workflow button in the top-right corner

You are now inside the workflow editor. Here is what you are looking at:

• Left side — the canvas area with a dot grid background. This is where you place and connect your nodes. A purple File Uploaded trigger node is already sitting at the top of the canvas.
• Right side — a side panel with two tabs. The Build tab shows the operation palette and node properties. The Execute tab lets you manually test your workflow.
• Top bar — an editable name field for your workflow, plus a Save Changes button.

Step 2: Name your workflow

Click the name field at the top of the editor and type a descriptive name. Something like resize-product-photos or optimize-uploads works well. A clear name makes it easy to find the right workflow later when you have several running.

Step 3: Configure the trigger

Every workflow starts with a trigger. The purple File Uploaded trigger node is already on your canvas. Click it to open its settings in the Build panel on the right.

You need to configure two things:

Select a source — Choose which connected storage this workflow should watch. When a new file lands in that storage, the workflow fires.

Set a file path pattern — Tell the workflow which files should trigger it. This uses simple pattern matching:

• *.jpg — only JPG files
• *.png — only PNG files
• uploads/** — any file inside the uploads folder and its subfolders
• * — every single file

Tip

If you sell on multiple marketplaces and keep images organized in folders, use a pattern like new-arrivals/** to process only the photos you drop into that specific folder.

Step 4: Add your first operation

Now it is time to tell the workflow what to do with the uploaded file.

1. In the Build panel on the right, find the operation palette. Operations are organized into sections: Processing, AI, Routing, and Output.
2. Open the Processing section
3. Drag Transform Image onto the canvas

A new node appears on the canvas. Now you need to connect it to the trigger so PixelFiddler knows the order of operations:

1. Hover over the bottom edge of the File Uploaded trigger node until you see a small connection handle
2. Click and drag from that handle down to the top edge of the Transform Image node
3. Release to create a connection line between the two nodes

Note

If your nodes look messy or overlapping, click the Auto-layout button above the canvas. It tidies up the positioning automatically.

Step 5: Configure the operation

Click the Transform Image node to open its settings in the Build panel. This is where you define exactly how each image should be processed.

For a typical e-commerce product photo optimization, try these settings:

• Output format — set to WebP for modern browsers with smaller file sizes
• Width — set to 1200 pixels, a good standard for product detail pages
• Quality — set to 80 for a solid balance between visual quality and file size

Leave the height empty to let PixelFiddler maintain the original aspect ratio.

Tip

If you need multiple sizes (thumbnail, medium, large), you can add several Transform Image nodes to a single workflow. Each one can have different dimensions and quality settings.

Step 6: Add a Save node

The workflow now knows how to transform images, but it needs to know where to put the results.

1. In the Build panel palette, open the Output section
2. Drag Save to Storage onto the canvas
3. Connect it the same way you did before — drag from the bottom handle of the Transform Image node to the top handle of the Save to Storage node

Click the Save to Storage node and configure it:

• Target storage — choose the storage where you want processed images saved (this can be the same storage or a different one)
• Target directory — set the folder path where results should land (e.g., optimized/ or web-ready/)
• Filename template — control how output files are named. Use {orig_name}-web to append “-web” to the original filename, so sneaker-front.jpg becomes sneaker-front-web.webp

Caution

Make sure the target directory is different from the folder your trigger is watching. Otherwise the saved output could trigger the workflow again, creating an infinite loop.

Step 7: Save your workflow

Your canvas should now show three nodes connected in a chain: File Uploaded at the top, then Transform Image in the middle, then Save to Storage at the bottom.

Click the Save Changes button in the top bar. PixelFiddler validates your workflow and confirms it saved successfully.

Step 8: Enable the workflow

A saved workflow does not start running automatically. You need to enable it first.

Find the Enabled toggle switch in the editor and turn it on. Once enabled, the workflow will begin watching your selected storage for new files that match your path pattern.

Step 9: Test it manually

Before relying on the workflow in production, run a quick manual test.

1. Switch to the Execute tab in the right-side panel
2. Pick a file from your storage to use as a test input
3. Click Run Workflow

PixelFiddler executes every step in your workflow using the selected file. You can watch the progress in real time as each node completes.

Step 10: Check your results

After the test run completes, check two things:

1. Execution status — look at the execution history to confirm the run finished successfully. Each node shows a green checkmark if it completed without errors, or a red indicator if something went wrong.
2. Output file — navigate to the target storage and directory you configured in the Save node. Your processed image should be there with the filename template applied.

Tip

If something did not work as expected, click on the failed node in the execution history to see detailed error information. The most common issues are incorrect storage permissions or mismatched file path patterns.

Useful editor features

Here are a few more features that help as your workflows grow:

Auto-layout — click this button to automatically arrange your nodes in a clean, readable layout. Especially useful after adding several nodes.

Undo and redo — press Ctrl+Z to undo your last change and Ctrl+Y to redo it. Works for node placement, connections, and configuration changes.

Operation palette sections — the Build panel organizes available operations into four categories:

• Processing — image transformations like resize, crop, and format conversion
• AI — intelligent operations like background removal and smart cropping
• Routing — conditional logic to branch your workflow based on file properties
• Output — save and delivery operations for your processed files

Next steps

Now that your first workflow is running, explore more of what the automation system can offer:

• Triggers reference — learn about all available trigger types and advanced pattern matching
• Operations reference — see every operation you can add to your workflows
• Execution history — monitor workflow runs, debug failures, and track performance over time