Canvas & pipelines
Place and connect components, and organize them into named pipelines.
The canvas is a graph editor. You arrange components as nodes and connect them with edges; each connected chain of receivers → processors → exporters forms a pipeline.
Working on the canvas
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Add a component | Drag it from the palette onto the canvas. |
| Move a node | Drag the node. |
| Connect two nodes | Drag from a source node's output handle to a target node's input handle. |
| Select | Click a node or edge. |
| Multi-select | Shift-click multiple nodes. |
| Pan | Drag on empty canvas space. |
| Zoom | Scroll, or use the on-canvas controls. |
| Mini-map | Use the overview map to navigate large pipelines. |
Toolbar actions for the canvas
- Duplicate — copy the selected node (or several selected nodes). Press Ctrl/Cmd + D.
- Delete — remove the selected node(s). Press Delete or Backspace.
- Undo / Redo — step backward and forward through canvas changes (Ctrl/Cmd + Z and Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z).
- Clear canvas — empty the canvas entirely (asks for confirmation first).
Connection rules
Telflo enforces the collector's wiring rules as you draw edges:
- Receivers only have outgoing connections (they're sources).
- Exporters only have incoming connections (they're destinations).
- Processors have both an input and an output.
- Extensions don't connect to anything — they're standalone.
Invalid connections are rejected or flagged. See Validation.
Pipelines
A pipeline carries one signal type through a chain of components. Telflo supports the three OpenTelemetry signal types, plus custom-named variants:
traces,metrics,logs- Custom names like
traces/production,metrics/staging,logs/critical
Edges define pipeline membership
Pipelines are defined by the edges you draw, not by the nodes alone:
- Each edge belongs to one pipeline.
- A single node (say, a shared
batchprocessor) can participate in several pipelines at once. - Each pipeline is color-coded on the canvas so you can see at a glance which data path an edge belongs to.
Managing pipelines
Use the pipeline manager to:
- Create a new pipeline (and give it a custom name).
- Set or change a pipeline's color.
- Toggle a pipeline's visibility to declutter the canvas.
- Delete a pipeline.
When you connect components, the resulting pipelines appear under
service.pipelines in the generated YAML.
Next
Configure each component's settings in the Configuration panel.