Flows vs agents vs runs

Flows, agents and runs work together, but they are separate things. Knowing the difference helps you decide where to make a change and where to look when something goes wrong.

At a glance

	Flow	Agent	Run
What it is	A rule that says when to act and what to do	A reusable worker with its own instructions, tools and skills	One piece of work an agent carries out
Answers	When and on what?	Who does the work, and how?	What happened this time?
Where you manage it	Automation → Flows	Automation → Agents	Automation → Activity
How long it lasts	Until you delete it	Until you delete it	Created each time work starts

Flows

A flow connects a trigger to an action. For example: when a GitHub release publishes in acme/web, start an agent run using your release-notes agent on that repository.

A flow doesn't do the work itself. It decides whether work should start and passes the details to an agent. Some flows don't use an agent at all; they move a task to another state or merge a branch.

Agents

An agent is the worker. It has instructions, a set of tools and skills, the kinds of items it can work on, and settings such as whether its runs need approval. One agent can be used by many flows, and you can also start it by hand.

Changing an agent changes how it behaves everywhere it's used. To change when it runs, edit the flow instead. See Agents.

Runs

A run is a single piece of work. Each time a flow starts an agent, or you start one yourself, Helpin creates a run. A run has a status, such as Running, Needs approval or Completed, and a record of everything the agent did.

See Agent runs.

Where do I make my change?

You want to…	Change the
Run on a different event or branch	Flow
Run every morning instead of on each push	Flow
Work on a different task, repository or record	Flow
Follow different instructions or use other tools	Agent
Require approval before the agent acts	Agent
Stop one piece of work that's in progress	Run

Deleting a flow doesn't have to delete its agent

Flows and agents are stored separately. When you delete a flow that was installed from a template and created its own agent, Helpin asks whether to keep that agent as a regular custom agent or delete it too. If another flow uses the same agent, Helpin keeps it.

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