Skip to main content
The Code node runs Python you write once per item in an isolated sandbox to reshape fields, compute values, or call an external service. It reads the input fields you declare and writes the output fields you declare. It is one of the nodes you add between the pipeline’s Start and End. See the pipeline nodes overview for how it fits with the others. Everything on this node can be set two ways: ask the agent, or open the node and edit by hand. By hand, the Python lives in the Code card, the input and output fields in their lists, the environment variables in the Environment variables card, and the check cases in the checks section.

​
Input and output fields

You declare each field the node reads and each field it writes, with a name and a type. A node may declare any number of input and output fields, and each is either required or optional. A field name must:
  • start with a letter and end with a letter or digit,
  • contain only lowercase letters, digits, and underscores,
  • be at most 128 characters,
  • be unique across the pipeline.
Your code receives the input fields as one dictionary keyed by field name and must return a dictionary keyed by the output field names. An optional input with no value for the current item is absent from the input dictionary. An optional output may be left out of the returned dictionary. After the code runs, the item fails if a required output field is missing, if the returned dictionary contains a field you did not declare, or if a returned value does not match its field’s declared type.

​
The code

The code is an async function named main that the platform calls once per item with that item’s inputs. It takes one argument, the dictionary of input fields, and returns a dictionary of output fields. A new node starts from this skeleton:
A node that reads an input field review_text and writes an output field word_count looks like this:
The code must:
  • import Inputs and Outputs from main_types,
  • define a top-level function named main, marked async,
  • give main exactly one argument annotated Inputs and annotate its return as Outputs,
  • contain at least one return that returns a value,
  • be valid, non-empty Python.
If the code raises, the item fails and the Python error, with its traceback, is recorded as the item’s failure reason. Every returned value must survive JSON encoding: text, numbers, true/false, lists, and dictionaries do. A date or file object does not, and returning one fails the item. Return a dictionary keyed by the declared output field names. Code Test rejects a non-object result.

​
Runtime environment

The platform pins the runtime to Python 3.12 and installs nothing on top. The standard library is available. Whatever else the base runtime happens to contain is not part of the contract, so rely only on the standard library. The node has no option to add packages, and an import of a package that is not present raises, which fails the item. Each item runs on its own. Nothing the code stores during one item’s run is available to another.

​
Environment variables

Use environment variables to pass fixed text or project secrets, such as an API key, to your code. An entry’s name must:
  • contain only uppercase letters, digits, and underscores, and not start with a digit,
  • be unique within the node.
An entry set to a secret must name a secret that exists in the project. You create those secrets on the project’s Secrets page. The agent can list their names to reference here but cannot create one. An invalid or duplicate name, or a reference to a secret the project does not have, is a configuration error that blocks the deploy.

​
The check

The check, the Code Test card on the node, is a set of check cases you define while editing. Each case has a name and its own sample values for the input fields, and running it executes the code once against those samples and reports success or the error it produced. You may define any number of cases.
A case runs your real code with the node’s real environment variables and secrets. Any side effect on an outside service (writing a record or spending against an external account) happens for real.
A case’s run has the same 60-second and 10 MB ceilings as a run-time item, plus a stricter cap of its own: each sample input value and each value the case’s run returns is capped at 32 KB. Code whose fields approach the 1 MB run-time cap therefore cannot be exercised at full size in a case. Running the cases is not required to deploy. A node with no cases, or with a case that has not been run or is still running, gets a warning you can override at deploy. Any case that failed blocks the deploy, as does leaving the code empty.

​
Limits

The run-time ceilings apply to every item, whether or not the node’s check cases passed. Sizes are measured on the JSON text of the values, in binary units (1 MB = 1,024 × 1,024 bytes). Keep the returned JSON comfortably below the 10 MB limit.
  • Pipeline nodes — how the Code node fits with the other node kinds
  • Fields and data — field names, types, and how values are shaped
  • Match node — route each item on a value your code derives
  • Self-check — where check results land in the deploy gate
  • Glossary — secret, field, and node defined briefly