The flow builder is where you design, edit, and test your scenarios. A few minutes learning the canvas saves you a lot of time once your flows get longer and start to branch.
Two ways to start
When you create a scenario, you pick one of two builders.
Comment to DM link is a guided wizard for the most common pattern: someone comments on your post and you reply in their DMs. It walks you through selecting posts, filtering comments, writing a comment reply, asking a question, sending a tracked link, following up if they don't click, and a final review before activating.
Custom scenario is a blank canvas where you choose any trigger and build any sequence of actions. Start from scratch, or clone a template to get a head start.
The canvas
The builder opens on a dotted-grid canvas. Your scenario reads top to bottom: the trigger node sits at the top, and action nodes connect below it. You can pan and zoom freely, and the layout arranges itself, so you don't position nodes by hand.
The trigger node has a dashed border and shows every trigger you've added, stacked together. Click Add a trigger to add more entry points to the same scenario. Below it, click Add a step at the end of any branch to add the next action.
Editing, copying, and moving steps
Each action node is edited in place, or through an edit panel for richer types like surveys, conversion links, and questions. Right-click a node (or open its menu) for Copy and Delete.
Copy and paste. Copy a node, then paste it at any insert point between steps or at the end of a branch. If the node has steps below it, Inrō asks whether to copy with children (the whole branch) or copy only this action. Copied nodes carry across scenarios too, so you can reuse a follow-up sequence you built elsewhere.
Drag to move. Drag a node onto another insert point to re-parent it. The original stays as a faint ghost while a copy follows your cursor. Moving a node with children prompts you to move with children or move only this action. You can't drop a node onto itself, onto its own descendants, or back where it already is, so you won't break the tree by accident.
Deleting steps
Delete a node from its menu. If it has steps below it, you choose how much to remove:
Delete only this action. The node is removed and its children reconnect to the step above.
Delete action and all its children. The whole branch is removed. It's highlighted in red before you confirm, so if more lights up than you expected, cancel and use the first option instead.
Scenario settings
The collapsible side panel holds settings that apply to the whole scenario, not a single step:
Limit frequency per contact. Stop the same person from triggering the flow too often.
Interrupt on message replies. Pause the scenario when you reply manually from the inbox, or when the contact replies, so a human can take over.
Exclude specific folders. Skip the scenario for contacts in the folders you select.
Add to scenario group. Assign the scenario to a group to control which one wins when several could fire at once.
For what each setting does in practice, see What Are Scenarios? Overview & Concepts.
Test mode
Click Test scenario in the top-right corner. You can run the flow two ways: copy the scenario's test code and DM it to yourself from your phone, or pick a contact from the search panel and run it immediately. Either way, the flow runs without waiting for a real trigger.
⚠️ Test sends are real messages. The contact you pick actually receives them, so use your own account or a test contact rather than a real audience member. Test runs are kept out of your metrics.
Always test before activating. It's the fastest way to catch a broken variable, an unexpected branch, or a message that reads wrong in context.
Templates
From the Scenarios list, click Browse templates before starting a new scenario. Templates are grouped by use case; click one to preview the flow, then clone it as an editable copy. You can also share your own scenarios as templates. See Templates: Browse, Clone & Share Scenarios for the full setup, including referral credit.
Active and inactive scenarios
A scenario is in one of two states:
Active. Running. It fires for new triggers.
Inactive. Off. It won't fire for new triggers, whether it was never activated or you paused it.
Pausing a scenario doesn't cancel runs already in progress; contacts partway through stay where they are. One extra note: a scenario that's still being generated by AI shows a temporary "generating" status and can't be activated until it finishes.
🐾 Netsuke's Tips
Use copy with children to build once and reuse. Design a solid follow-up sequence, copy its top node, and paste it into every branch that needs it.
When you edit an active scenario, changes apply to new runs right away. Contacts already mid-flow continue on the version they started with, so pause the scenario first if you're making big structural changes.
Name scenarios clearly from the start. A format like "Comment: GUIDE -> Email capture" tells you the trigger and the goal at a glance.
Keep the canvas readable by collapsing finished branches in your head: build the happy path first, activate and test it, then add the timeout and follow-up branches.
What's next?
Set your entry point with Triggers: The Complete Reference. Once your scenario is live, learn to read its results in Scenario Metrics & Performance Tracking.