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Flows

A flow is a composable pipeline that processes content files through a sequence of tools: AI drafting, source checks, term checks, and more. Flows are a neokapi engine feature; this page covers how they behave inside a Bowrain project. For the mechanics of the streaming pipeline, the full tool catalog, and the supported formats, see the neokapi reference:

  • Tool reference: every processing tool and its inputs and outputs.
  • Format reference: every format reader/writer and its configurable parameters.
  • Flows: the streaming-pipeline model.

Flows in a synced project​

In a Bowrain project, a flow reads the source files, streams their blocks through the tools in order, and, with no -o, commits the results to the project store as overlays (a process-only run); kapi merge then materializes the target files (pass -o to write a file directly instead). You then kapi push those changes to the server like any other edit. The flow itself runs locally; it does not touch the server until you push.

For the everyday reconcile, kapi up runs the project's default flow for you, on the server when the project is connected. Run a named flow yourself when you want one composition, one pass, and no gate loop.

Built-in flows​

kapi ships a small set of composed flows you can run by name:

FlowDescription
translateDraft with an AI provider
translate-qaAI drafting followed by quality checks
pseudo-translateGenerate pseudo-translations for UI testing
qaRule-based quality checks (whitespace, punctuation, placeholders)
recyclePre-fill targets from content memory
segmentationSplit source text into sentence segments

List what is available in your installation, including any tools and formats added by plugins, rather than relying on a fixed list:

kapi flows     # composed flows
kapi tools     # individual tools (flow steps)
kapi formats   # supported formats

Run a flow:

# Standalone (no project)
kapi run translate-qa -i input.html -o output.html --source-lang en --target-lang fr

# In a project, against the recipe's content collections
kapi run translate-qa

Custom flows​

Define a flow as a YAML file under .kapi/flows/, composing the tools you need. Step config keys are the tool's own schema keys, in camelCase, as the tool reference lists them; an unrecognized key is ignored.

.kapi/flows/translate-with-checks.yaml:

name: translate-with-checks
description: AI drafting with quality checks and a term check

steps:
  - tool: translate
    config:
      provider: anthropic
      model: claude-sonnet-5

  - tool: term-check
    config:
      caseSensitive: false

  - tool: qa
    config:
      checkDoubleSpaces: true
      checkPatterns: true
      checkTargetInconsistency: true

Run it with kapi run translate-with-checks. See Custom flows for more compositions, and the tool reference for each step's configurable parameters.

Next steps​