Glance format

A workflow's page may hold glance, beside data, result and runs: what the workflow says about itself in a fixed shape, which Auto Studio shows on the playbook's Overview, in the counts on the playbook's tile on the home, and on the card a shared link to it shows; the workflow's own page shows its result instead. It is the one place a person looks to learn whether anything is waiting on them and what the workflow has done, so it is structured, lean and never padded. get_definition of the workflow carries it rendered, as page.glance.

glance is a mapping, not a block scalar. Each string in it, however deep, is a Liquid template, checked when the page is saved as result and runs are, with its line (Page format); numbers, true, false and null are taken as written. It reads these variables and nothing else:

Variable	Value
`views.<name>`	Each view `data.views` names, as `runs` reads it; `null` while the views are being built
`output`	The output of the workflow's latest run that ended; `null` before one has, or where it failed
`run.status`	How that run ended: `succeeded`, `rejected` or `failed`; `run` is `null` before one has ended
`run.started`	When that run started, in ISO 8601, in UTC, where it succeeded
`run.ended`	When that run ended, in ISO 8601, in UTC, where it succeeded
`run.version`	The version of the workflow that run used, where it succeeded
`subject`	The workflow, as `result` reads it
`today` and `now`	The date and the time of the read, as `result` reads them

A string that is a single output and nothing else, such as '{{ views.done.values | size }}', renders as the JSON value its text reads as, so a count stays a number and '{{ views.activity | json }}' stays a list; any other string renders as its text, trimmed. Where any template of the glance stops, get_definition carries no page.glance. A glance takes at most 16,384 bytes as JSON, and a function's page and the playbook's have none.

Read the glance from the views where you can, so a check that changes nothing does not reset it to zero. Its fields:

headline, required: one or two short sentences, 110 characters at most, about the world now, never about the run. 2 experiments in Executing; 3 human tasks are open across them., not Run completed or No changes this time.
visual, required: exactly one of four shapes, each fed from views:
- { kind: figures, items: [{ name, value, limit }] }: two or three standing numbers, each limit optional. Names in sentence case, 24 characters at most. A limit shows as 0 / 2.
- { kind: bars, items: [{ name, value, limit }], aside: { name, value } }: two to four named counts drawn as bars, each limit and the side figure aside optional.
- { kind: progress, name, value, target }: one count against a target.
- { kind: trend, name, days, points: [{ at, value }], aside: { name, value } }: one daily series over the last days, 14 or 30, from a view such as views.activity, its aside optional.
Show no percentage unless its denominator is in the glance.
outstanding, required and possibly empty: up to three items a person must act on, each { kind, title, ref, who, action: { label, href } }, its kind one of decision, task and blocker. List only what a person must do, never a status. title names the person's move for a decision or a task, Choose ideas to Accept or Publish the landing page variant, and the prerequisite for a blocker, Authorize the PostHog website connection. ref is the external identifier where there is one, such as MAR-52, and who the person's name where it is known; both are optional. action is required on every item and is the one place to go and do it: an external address where the work lives outside Auto, such as the issue in Linear, or a route of Auto Studio's where it is inside Auto, such as /connections or /connections/<provider>. label is a verb or Open <ref>, three words at most. Write each title so it makes sense without the workflow's name, since the playbook sums them. Auto Studio heads the list Tasks, and shows an empty list as No tasks.

Leave out a state, which Auto Studio works out itself: a blocker in outstanding, or a latest run that failed or was rejected, needs attention; any other item requires input; a run in progress is running; otherwise the workflow is idle. Where its latest run failed or was rejected and no blocker says so, Auto Studio lists a blocker of its own first, saying what went wrong, so leave a failed run out of outstanding. Leave out too timestamps, the schedule, run counts, run statuses, costs, a next-step sentence, which the outstanding items are, the workflow's description, emoji, exclamation marks, and any sentence that restates another field. A field the glance does not name is ignored, an item without action.href is left out, and a headline is cut at 110 characters.

A verification fixture, a preview or a synthetic run must not change the glance: where output is a test's or a preview's, leave every field read from views as it is and add no outstanding item. A preview's sample output never reaches the glance, which only a recorded run's output does.

This glance of a workflow that coordinates approved experiments reads its counts from its views:

yaml

page:
  glance:
    headline: '{{ views.stages.values[1].value }} experiments in Executing; {{ views.tasks.values | size }} human tasks are open across them.'
    visual:
      kind: bars
      items:
        - { name: Ready, value: '{{ views.stages.values[0].value }}', limit: 2 }
        - { name: Executing, value: '{{ views.stages.values[1].value }}', limit: 2 }
        - { name: Measuring, value: '{{ views.stages.values[2].value }}', limit: 3 }
      aside: { name: Human tasks open, value: '{{ views.tasks.values | size }}' }
    outstanding:
      - kind: task
        title: Publish the landing page variant
        ref: MAR-52
        who: Kit
        action: { label: Open MAR-52, href: 'https://linear.app/acme/issue/MAR-52' }

When no experiment is in Executing, the same glance says No approved experiment is in Executing. over figures of Executing 0 / 2, Human tasks waiting 0 and Advanced to Measuring 0, with an empty outstanding, which shows as idle. A workflow that waits on a connection says so as blockers, each with the route that resolves it:

yaml

page:
  glance:
    headline: Website measurement is blocked until the PostHog website connection is authorized.
    visual: { kind: trend, name: Lessons confirmed, days: 30, points: '{{ views.lessons.lines[0].points | json }}' }
    outstanding:
      - kind: blocker
        title: Authorize the PostHog website connection
        action: { label: Authorize, href: /connections/posthog-website }