Documentation for Tables, Steps and Workflows

Description

Select a step or workflow in a project and its details panel opens. At the bottom, a Documentation section shows a page Weave writes about it from the project’s saved settings. A table’s details panel shows its Columns instead, with each column’s type and description; the page below describes what Weave and AI assistants read for a table:

for a table, the steps that write and read it, and its columns;
for a step, what it does and where it runs;
for a workflow, its steps in order and the tables it reads and writes.

The page is written each time you select the item, from the settings as they are saved at that moment, so it never goes out of date and there is nothing to refresh by hand. No AI is involved, so it works when no AI provider is available. After a save in the same details panel, such as a new description, the page is written again.

Weave AI, the chat in a project’s Weave tab, and AI assistants connected over MCP can read the same page. See For AI Assistants.

A Table’s Page

The description — the table’s Memo, shown as a quote. PlaidCloud sets the memo Created dynamically on a table a step creates; that one is not shown, since it says nothing about the table.
Written by and Read by — each step, by name, with its step type and the workflows it is in. (disabled) follows a workflow where the step is disabled, and not in any workflow marks a step that isn’t in one. A step whose table name holds a variable that may or may not name this table is listed with depending on the values of its variables. A step that gives only a name several tables share is listed with, for example, unless it means another of the 2 tables with this name, counting only tables you can open. A Table: Clear, Table: Drop or Table: In-Place Delete step counts as writing the table it changes, and a step that reads a table and writes it back is listed under both.
No step in this project reads this table. means no step in this project lists it as a source. The page does not check dashboards, exports, other projects or anything outside the project’s steps.
Columns — each column and its type, with its description from Column Properties where one is set.

A Step’s Page

What it does gives one sentence for each thing the step does:

Step	The page says
Allocation: Split	Which value it splits from which table, across which columns, using which driver column, and how each share is worked out — for example, “Each `product`’s share is its `weight` divided by the total `weight` for the same `cost_center`, `year` and `month`.” Columns are named as the source and driver tables name them. A filter on the step’s source or driver is noted, and the tables it writes are named.
Allocation: Split using Dimension	Which value it splits from which table and which driver column it uses, and every table it writes, including its mapping, path and summary tables.
Import	The file or files it imports and the table it imports into.
Export	The table it exports and the file it writes.
Extract: SQL with no listed sources	That it runs a SQL query, and the table it writes.
Table: Clear, Table: Drop, Table: In-Place Delete	That it clears, drops or deletes rows from its table, or, when it picks tables by search or folder, that it acts on the tables that setting picks.
Import External Project Table	That it copies a table from another project into a table in this one.
A step that runs another workflow	The workflow it runs and how: when its conditions are met, in a loop, as a macro (once for each row of its source table, for a concurrent run), or by including it. A workflow chosen by a variable is shown as the name the step gives, and one in another project is described as that. Any table the step itself reads, such as the table a loop steps through, is listed too.
Any other step	The tables it reads and the tables it writes.

The page then says where the step runs — It is step 3 in followed by the workflow, numbered as in the workflow’s steps list — or that it isn’t in any workflow.

A table the step names through a variable is shown by its name, followed by (named by a variable).

A Workflow’s Page

Steps — numbered as in the workflow’s steps list, with each step’s type and the table it writes, or the workflow it runs. Steps of a workflow it includes are listed in place, as the steps list shows them.
Reads from outside this workflow — tables a step reads before any step in this workflow writes them.
Writes — tables the workflow’s steps write.

Disabled steps are listed in Steps but left out of the two lists. The page says so, since a table a disabled step writes may then be listed as read from outside. The tables used by a workflow that one of its steps runs are on that workflow’s own page.

A Handover Pack for the Whole Project

To hand a project over, for example to a client at the end of an engagement, download every page at once. In the Projects window, select one project and choose Download Handover Pack from the Actions menu or the right-click menu. You need read access to the project, its steps, its workflows and its tables.

The pack is one Markdown file, named after the project — for example Month End handover.md — and written from the saved settings when you download it. It opens with the project’s description and a count of what it holds, then has four sections:

Workflows — each workflow’s page. Workflows that no other workflow runs come first, by name, and each is followed by the workflows it runs, in the order it runs them. A workflow run from two places is listed once.
Tables — each table’s page, as above, including its columns and their descriptions.
Metrics — each metric definition’s current version, in plain sentences: what it measures, from which table, the tables it joins, the rows it uses, its actual and budget rows, its periods and what it can be broken down by. A metric built from others says how, for example Revenue divided by Orders. See Metric Definitions.
Allocation models — each chain of allocation steps that feed one another, with the step or steps it ends with and each step’s split, in run order. A step that doesn’t run in any workflow is left out. A model is named after its workflow, or the folder its workflows share. When it has no such name, shares it with another model, or takes it from something your role hides, it is titled by one of its steps instead. An allocation model has no page of its own outside the pack.

The pack follows the same rules as a single page for what your role hides. A workflow, table or allocation model you can’t open is left out and counted at the top, for example It leaves out 2 workflows and 5 tables you can’t open. A step you can’t open is never named, as on a single page.

What Your Role Hides

A table, step or workflow can be hidden from the Manager or Explorer role. A page never names one your role hides:

A step you can’t open is counted — for example, 2 more steps you can’t open — and keeps its number in a workflow’s steps list.
A table, step or workflow you can’t open reads the same as one that no longer exists — for example, a table you can’t open or that no longer exists — so a page can’t be used to find out whether something hidden exists. The steps left out of a workflow’s lists this way are noted, since a table one of them writes may then be listed as read from outside. A table a step names that you can’t open, or that doesn’t exist, is shown by the name the step gives it, followed by (not a table you can open), and a workflow likewise by (not a workflow you can open).
Asking for the page of an item your role hides answers as if it isn’t there.

An Architect can open everything, so an Architect’s pages say a deleted table, (table not found), A deleted step or (workflow not found) instead.

What It Doesn’t Cover

Row counts, sizes and update times.
Tables a step reaches only through its SQL text or an expression. The page lists the tables a step names in its settings.
Unsaved edits. The page describes the saved settings.

For AI Assistants

Weave AI can read a table’s, step’s or workflow’s page when you ask about it in a conversation opened on a project, and answer from what the page says. See Weave AI Chat.
AI assistants connected over MCP can read the same page with the doc_describe tool, given the project, whether the item is a table, step or workflow, and its id. It needs read access to steps, workflows and tables, and follows the same rules for what your role hides. See AI Agents (MCP).