ALP Specification — Workflow Visualization

Version: 80.0.0
Status: Stable

---

1. Workflow Visualization Overview

flowchart LR
    Workflow[@workflow] --> Steps[Steps]
    Steps --> Step1[Step 1]
    Steps --> Step2[Step 2]
    Steps --> Step3[Step 3]
    Step1 -->|on_success| Step2
    Step2 -->|on_failure| Step1
    Engine[Visualizer] --> Mermaid[Mermaid]
    Engine --> DOT[Graphviz DOT]
    Engine --> JSON[JSON]

2. Overview

ALP v10.2.0 introduces Workflow Visualization: the ability to render @workflow objects as diagrams. Because ALP workflows are machine-readable directed graphs of steps, agents, and conditions, they can be transformed into standard diagram formats without any external model.

This enables:

• Human review of complex multi-agent workflows
• Documentation generated directly from .alp files
• CI artifacts (PNG/SVG) published as part of a build
• AI-assisted planning: an LLM can read the Mermaid/DOT output to reason about execution order

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2. Diagram Formats

2.1 Mermaid flowchart

Mermaid is the default format. It produces a flowchart TD (top-down) graph with one subgraph per workflow.

flowchart TD
  subgraph wf_standard["Standard Development"]
    s_wf_0[Step A]
    s_wf_1{{Step B\ngroup: impl}}
    s_wf_2{{Step C\ngroup: impl}}
    s_wf_3[Step D]
    grp_impl --> s_wf_3
    s_wf_0 --> s_wf_1
    s_wf_1 --> s_wf_2
    s_wf_2 --> s_wf_3
    s_wf_3 --> wf_standard_done(["Done"])
  end

2.2 CLI Usage

# Output Mermaid diagram for a workflow
alp visualize wf-standard --format mermaid --out workflow.mmd