Chains
Reusing a chain
Save a chain you got right and spawn it onto any board, remembering that the copy and the saved version are independent.
Once a chain produces the thing you wanted, save it. It goes into your chain library and can be spawned onto any board afterwards, which turns a sequence you worked out once into something you press. ## Saving and spawning Saving takes a snapshot of the steps: which tools, in which order, with which models and which settings. Spawning it on a board creates a **new chain instance** from that snapshot, sitting on the canvas ready to run. :::caution[The copy is not linked to the saved version] Editing a spawned chain does not change the saved one, and editing the saved one does not reach back into chains already on boards. If you improve a chain on a board and want that improvement kept, save it again. Otherwise the improvement lives on that board and nowhere else. ::: That independence is deliberate. A live link would mean somebody tuning a chain on their board silently changing the chain everybody else spawns, which is worse than copying. ## What is worth saving Sequences that are about **your process** rather than about one image: - The finishing pass you run on everything before it goes to a client - The mesh preparation you do on every generated model before export - The specific restyle-and-grade combination that matches a brand What is not worth saving is a sequence tuned to one asset. The settings that were right for that image are rarely right for the next one, and a library of forty nearly-identical chains is harder to use than no library. :::tip[Name it after the outcome] "Client-ready finish" beats "Chain 4". You will be reading the list months later looking for a result, not for a sequence of tool names. ::: ## A teammate can run your process A saved chain is the closest thing here to writing down how you work. A teammate spawning it gets the same tools, in the same order, at the same settings, without you explaining any of it. That is more durable than a document describing the same thing, because it cannot drift from what actually runs. ## On a shared board A chain on a board is visible to everyone who can open it, and anyone who can edit the board can run it. Someone viewing through a public link sees the chain and cannot run it, drag it or change it. The Run button is inert for them, along with every other edit affordance, which is the same rule the rest of the read-only viewer follows. :::note[Running a chain spends the board's credits] A chain is a generation, so it charges the workspace that owns the board, the same as any other run. On a shared board that means a collaborator pressing Run on your chain is spending from your pool. :::Once a chain produces the thing you wanted, save it. It goes into your chain library and can be spawned onto any board afterwards, which turns a sequence you worked out once into something you press.
Saving and spawning
Section titled “Saving and spawning”Saving takes a snapshot of the steps: which tools, in which order, with which models and which settings.
Spawning it on a board creates a new chain instance from that snapshot, sitting on the canvas ready to run.
That independence is deliberate. A live link would mean somebody tuning a chain on their board silently changing the chain everybody else spawns, which is worse than copying.
What is worth saving
Section titled “What is worth saving”Sequences that are about your process rather than about one image:
- The finishing pass you run on everything before it goes to a client
- The mesh preparation you do on every generated model before export
- The specific restyle-and-grade combination that matches a brand
What is not worth saving is a sequence tuned to one asset. The settings that were right for that image are rarely right for the next one, and a library of forty nearly-identical chains is harder to use than no library.
A teammate can run your process
Section titled “A teammate can run your process”A saved chain is the closest thing here to writing down how you work. A teammate spawning it gets the same tools, in the same order, at the same settings, without you explaining any of it.
That is more durable than a document describing the same thing, because it cannot drift from what actually runs.
On a shared board
Section titled “On a shared board”A chain on a board is visible to everyone who can open it, and anyone who can edit the board can run it.
Someone viewing through a public link sees the chain and cannot run it, drag it or change it. The Run button is inert for them, along with every other edit affordance, which is the same rule the rest of the read-only viewer follows.