Build
The Build page is the alternative to starting from an empty canvas: describe the automation you want in plain language, and let Esca draft the flow for you. Esca is the AI assistant built into Esca Automations, and drafting is one of the things you can ask it to do.
What the page shows
The page is a single prompt card sitting on the same dotted canvas the flow editor uses, so the thing you are about to make is what you are typing into. Once you send a prompt, a second card—the Activity log—opens below it, wired to the first the way two nodes are wired on a canvas.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Prompt box | Where you describe the automation. Press Enter to send; press Shift+Enter for a new line. |
| Microphone | Dictates into the prompt box instead of typing. Only appears where your browser supports voice input, and is hidden while a draft is generating. |
| Send | Starts the draft. Disabled until the prompt box has text. |
| Stop | Replaces Send while a draft is generating and halts it. |
| Suggested templates | Up to three ready-built workflows under "Not sure where to start? These are already built." Each opens a read-only preview in a popup. |
| Browse all templates | Opens the full Templates catalog. |
| from scratch instead | Opens the flow editor on a new, empty automation. |
Drafting a flow
Describe what should happen in whatever detail you have—for example, "When an article is published, summarize it and post the summary to Slack." Esca works out the triggers, conditions, and actions to match, and narrates what it is doing in the Activity log as it goes.
The log records each step: a status line for what Esca is doing, and a Call or Result entry for each tool it uses. Expand an entry to read the detail behind it. Two controls sit in the log's header:
- Copy—copies the whole log to the clipboard, which is what to send along if you need to report a bad draft.
- Start over—clears the log and returns the page to an empty prompt, once a draft has finished, failed, or been stopped.
Leaving the page while a draft is still generating asks you to confirm first.
What you end up with
A finished draft is a real automation, saved for you—not a canvas you still have to commit. Because nobody has reviewed it yet, it is created disabled and in Dry Run mode, so it cannot fire on its own and cannot make a real change until you say so. Review it, adjust it, and then turn it on and switch it to Live when you are satisfied. See Run modes.
When the drafted flow is structurally sound, the page takes you straight into the flow editor with it open. When something needs your attention—a step left incomplete, a connection the draft could not close—the log lists the problems under Created with issues to review and gives you an Open workflow link instead, so you read them before you land in the editor.
Stopping a draft partway stops the work; it does not undo it. If Esca had already created the automation, it stays, and it is left disabled and in Dry Run for the same reason a finished draft is.
When drafting is unavailable
Drafting runs on your default AI model, as does the Esca assistant inside the flow editor. With no model configured, the page shows AI generation isn't available with a Start from scratch button, and nothing can be drafted until a model is set. The Default Model is on the Nodes tab of the Settings page—see AI agents and models.
Related
- Building automations—the flow editor a draft opens into, field by field.
- Drafting an automation with AI—the same drafting flow in the context of building.
- AI agents and models—which model runs the drafting, and how one is chosen.
- Templates—the other way to avoid an empty canvas.