Course 1: MIFY Fundamentals — Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Understanding Nodes and Connections

Now that you’ve run a template, let’s understand how workflows are built.

What You’ll Learn

• What nodes are and what they do
• How to connect nodes
• How data flows through a workflow

What is a Node?

A node is one step in your workflow. Each node does something specific:

Node Type	What It Does	Example
Trigger	Starts the workflow	Manual (click Run), Webhook (incoming HTTP), Schedule (cron)
AI / LLM	Calls an AI model	Chat (ask a question), Embed (create embeddings), Image (generate an image)
Transform	Changes data	Template (format text), JavaScript (custom logic)
Logic	Makes decisions	Route If (if/else), Route Switch (multi-branch), Loop Map (iterate)
RAG	Works with documents	Ingest (load docs), Retrieve (search), Rerank (sort results)
Platform	Connects to other tools	Dify, Flowise, Langflow, n8n, and 20+ more

MIFY has 117 nodes across 24 categories. Browse them all at /nodes:

How Connections Work

Connections are lines between nodes. They define data flow — the output of one node becomes the input of the next.

Trigger → Chat Node → Template Node → Output

Rules:

• Data flows in one direction (left to right, or top to bottom)
• No loops allowed (this is called a DAG — directed acyclic graph)
• One node’s output can connect to multiple nodes (fan-out)
• Multiple nodes can connect to one node (fan-in / join)

Building a Simple Workflow

1. Open Canvas — click Canvas in the navigation
2. Add a Trigger — drag “Manual” from the Triggers section in the left panel
3. Add a Chat node — drag “Chat” from the AI/LLM section
4. Connect them — click the output handle (right side) of the Trigger and drag to the input handle (left side) of the Chat node
5. Configure the Chat node — click the node and set:
   • Provider: Ollama (if installed) or your AI provider
   • Model: Choose a model
   • System Prompt: “You are a helpful assistant”
6. Run — click the green Run button

Exercise

1. Build a 3-node workflow: Manual Trigger → Chat → Template
2. Configure the Chat node to answer questions
3. Configure the Template node to format the response as HTML
4. Run it and check the output of each node

Key Takeaways

• Nodes are the building blocks — each does one thing well
• Connections define the order of execution and data flow
• You configure each node by clicking it
• The canvas shows the full picture of your workflow

Previous: Chapter 1 — Your First Workflow | Next: Chapter 3 — Adding AI to Your Workflow