Flow Runner
Flow Runner brings multi-step API workflows to Tigrister. Instead of manually copying tokens, IDs, or other values between requests, define your steps once and let Flow Runner handle the chaining, validation, and reporting.
Key Concepts
- Flow Group — A collection of related flows with shared environments (dev, staging, prod)
- Flow — A sequence of HTTP request steps that run together
- Step — A single HTTP request with its own URL, method, headers, body, auth, assertions, scripts, and variable extractions
Flow Group (e.g., "Auth API")
→ Flow (e.g., "Login Flow")
→ Step 1: POST /api/login
→ Step 2: GET /api/profile
→ Step 3: PUT /api/settings
Step Configuration
Each step is a full-featured HTTP request. Create steps manually, import from Box, or import from Projects — all configuration is preserved.
Steps support everything a standalone request does: body, params, headers, authentication, pre/post scripts, and variable extractions. Plus flow-specific features:
- Assertions — Validate response status, body content, and headers. Turns your flows into automated tests.
- Retry logic — Configure max retries, delay strategy (fixed or exponential), and retry conditions (network error, 5xx, rate limit).
- Enable/Disable — Toggle steps on or off without deleting them. Disabled steps are skipped during execution.
- Drag to reorder — Rearrange steps by dragging their handle.
Variable Extraction & Chaining
The core feature that makes Flow Runner powerful — extract values from responses and inject them into subsequent steps automatically.
| Source | Expression | Example |
|---|---|---|
| JSON Path | Dot notation into response body | data.token |
| Header | Response header name | X-Request-Id |
| Regex | First capture group from response body | id":(\d+) |
| Status Code | HTTP status code (no expression needed) | 200 |
Extracted values are referenced as {{flow.varName}} in any subsequent step's URL, headers, body, params, or assertions.
Two Variable Systems
| Syntax | Source | Lifetime | Use For |
|---|---|---|---|
{{flow.varName}} | Extractions & tg.flow.set() | Current run only | Tokens, IDs, dynamic data |
{{varName}} | Group environments | Persistent | Base URLs, API keys, config |
Execution
Click Run to execute all enabled steps in order. Fine-tune execution with run options:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Iterations | Run the entire flow N times sequentially for regression and stability testing |
| Parallel execution | Run independent steps simultaneously |
| Delay between steps | Add millisecond delays for rate-limited APIs |
| Stop on failure | Halt immediately on first failure, or continue to get the full picture |
Results & Analytics
After execution, the Results Panel provides a comprehensive breakdown:
- Summary cards — Duration, success rate (ring chart), average response time, data transfer, and bottleneck detection
- Response time chart — Line chart per step. With multiple iterations, each iteration gets its own colored line with aggregate and individual views.
- Step results list — Status, method, URL, status code, response time, size, and assertion results for every step
- Anomaly detection — Automatic statistical analysis across iterations to detect outliers and inconsistent response times (requires 3+ iterations)
- Error details — Failed steps with error messages and assertion failures surfaced at a glance
Export
Export execution results in three formats:
- HTML — Formatted report for sharing with team members
- PDF — Document for documentation and archiving
- JSON — Raw data for CI/CD pipelines and programmatic analysis
Flow Environments
Each Flow Group has its own environments. Define variables per environment and switch between them from the action bar dropdown.
| Variable | Development | Staging | Production |
|---|---|---|---|
base_url | http://localhost:3000 | https://staging.api.com | https://api.com |
api_key | dev-key-123 | stg-key-456 | prod-key-789 |
Variables can be marked as secret — values are masked in the UI and excluded from exports.
Flow Runner turns Tigrister from an API client into a complete API testing and automation platform — define once, run repeatedly, and catch regressions before they reach production.