Reusable and Nested Workflows

A reusable workflow is an ordinary Workflow with a public interface. Put the definition in a no-argument build_workflow factory so each materialization is fresh.

from bioimageflow import Workflow

def build_workflow() -> Workflow:
    workflow = Workflow(name="segment", display_name="Segment")
    with workflow:
        image = workflow.input("image", ImagePath, id="input-image")
        masks = Segment()(input_image=image, name="segment")
        workflow.output("mask", masks["mask"], id="output-mask")
    return workflow

Calling a workflow inside a distinct active parent captures an independent WorkflowNode:

child = build_workflow()
parent = Workflow(name="parent")
with parent:
    source = Files()(path="images", name="files")
    nested = child(image=source["path"], name="segment-images")
    parent.output("mask", nested["mask"], id="output-mask")

Root callers pass interface values with compute(inputs={...}). Nested tools execute under scoped paths such as segment-images/segment and keep their own cache entries. The workflow boundary succeeds only after every enabled internal terminal, including detached branches, succeeds or hits cache.

Use from_python() only for trusted Python definitions. Portable exports contain the materialized recursive graph and never need to run the factory again.