Worked examples

An app is a job to do — with a delivery method and a pattern, decided in the FlowFuse guide. The solution is a Node-RED flow — and an app isn't always a single one. A bigger app is one or more flows working together.

Each worked example takes a real app and turns it into a flow — showing the design pattern(s) and data-handling method(s) it selects, and why.

The app can be built entirely by FlowFuse, built together with your team, or built by you from these examples. The build is the same either way.

From app to flow

Turn the app into a flow the same way each time — two selections, then keep to good form:

  1. Start from the app — its one job, and (from the FlowFuse guide) how it's delivered and what shape it takes.
  2. Break it into flows — most apps are a single flow; a bigger one is a few, each doing a clear part.
  3. Select the design pattern(s) — find the seams, then pick a reuse level for each piece: link in/out, link call, subflow, or packaged node. A flow often uses more than one — or none: a simple, one-path flow may need no pattern at all, and that's fine.
  4. Select the data-handling method(s) — this part is never skippable. Even a simple flow with no pattern still has to classify what it's getting (event or stream?) and decide whether it needs batching / rate-limit, separate paths, context, or config.

Then keep it in good form — the general habits (call shared things, one path per beginning, a single sink, catch errors) that keep any flow readable.

The examples

The FlowFuse OEE worked example breaks that use case into two apps. Here's how each one looks as a Node-RED flow, shaped by the patterns it uses.

OEE - Edge Aggregator → — the edge piece, packaged as a reusable subflow: poll → read → compute → publish, one per line.
OEE - Central Dashboard → — the cloud app: subscribe → compute → link out, fanning to a link in for the dashboard and a second link in for batched history, with the UI decoupled from the logic.

More examples will land here — each one takes an app and turns it into a flow, move by move.