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Proposal - Pin the published version of a workflow #7128
Background
Discussed in the weekly meeting, coming out of the public workflow
reporting/moderation discussion #6242
The problem
A published workflow currently shows its latest version. Editing it
instantly changes what everyone sees, with no explicit "publish this
version" step. Whatever the author last saved is what the public gets.
This breaks moderation: if a reported workflow is taken down, the author
can edit it to look clean, get it re-approved, then edit it back — the bad
content goes public again with no review. Any approval only holds for that
one moment, not for what's shown afterward.
The plan
Pin the published version.
- Publishing publishes a specific version, not a live pointer to "latest".
- Viewers and cloners get a copy of that pinned version, not the author's
newest edits. - The author keeps editing freely; edits do not change the public version.
To go public, the author explicitly updates the published version to
their latest. - A workflow still appears as a single entry in the public Hub. Pinning
changes which version the entry shows, not how many entries there are.
Author awareness
When the author's latest differs from the published version, the Share
button shows a small dot; hovering explains it, and re-publishing is done
inside the Share dialog. No banner in the editor canvas.
Open question
After pinning, the author's canvas and the published version can differ.
Should the author also be able to preview and clone the published version,
so they can get back to what's currently public? Or is editing the latest
version enough?
All reactions
Replies: 2 comments 1 reply
I support this design. It assumes only a particular version of a published workflow is publicly visible, not the entire revision history. It will be good to check other web services (e.g., Google Docs) to see their user experience.
Regarding the question, as the author can alway see the entire revision history of a workflow, they can always revert to a particular version that's published. To make it easy for the author to identify such a version, it will be good to add a special tag for each published version, e.g., "Published on August 2, 2028" or something like that.
All reactions
Thank you for the feedback. The tag has been implemented, along with two additions.
Version panel.
The version currently served by the Hub is now marked.
Screenshot 2026年08月06日 at 11 49 49 AM
publish history
Every published version is listed with its date and operator count. The author can restore any of them to public view, and the working copy is left untouched.
Screenshot 2026年08月06日 at 11 51 37 AM
Hub.
When the published version is older than the version the author is editing, opening the workflow from the Hub now leads to the published preview rather than the editor, and Clone there copies the published version. Previously the author was the only person unable to see what everyone else was seeing.
All reactions
##summary from the group meeting (Thursday, Aug 20)
We went through the proposal above and converged on two options for the author, and nothing else:
- Follow latest — exactly what Texera does today: the public sees the author's latest content, updated on every save. This stays the default, so a workflow whose author never pins behaves as it always has.
- Pin current version — the public keeps seeing the version the author pinned. Later edits stay in the author's working copy; pinning again is how those edits become public.
The title and the description freeze with the graph, so a pinned workflow appears on the Hub exactly as it was pinned.
Once the author edits past the pin, the two copies differ — and the pinned one is still reachable. The revision panel marks it (Currently public), so it can be restored like any other version; and on the Hub the author can open it and clone it exactly like any other user does.
What this drops from the proposal above. No library of past publications to pick from: only one version is ever on show, and there is no picker listing what was published before. The two paths above already cover getting an earlier copy back.
All reactions
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👍 1