Contributing & architecture
The user-facing documentation lives on this site; the deep technical documentation lives in the blocknext repository, next to the code — it’s reviewed in the same PRs that change the code, so it stays accurate.
Start here
Section titled “Start here”CONTRIBUTING.md— development setup (make docker-dev-upbuilds everything from source), conventions, and the PR checklist.ARCHITECTURE.md— the system map: services, the modular-monolith design of platform-api, eventing, configuration, CI/CD, and the reasoning behind the key design decisions.
Deep dives
Section titled “Deep dives”Every bounded context in platform-api has its own README covering its responsibility, core concepts, API, and events. The mechanics behind the headline features:
| Topic | Where |
|---|---|
The canvas model — $references, credential references, deliberate simplicity |
workflows |
| One node descriptor → UI form, validation, function calling, MCP tool | nodeengine |
| How a node becomes an MCP tool | mcp |
| Task scheduling, DAG execution order, prompt layering | taskrunner |
| Trigger types, webhook adapters, runtime config overlay | triggers |
| Credential encryption, masking, owner scoping | credentials |
| OAuth flow, single-flight token refresh | credentialoauth |
| Auth methods & account security model | account |