Dispatches from the automation desk
Product news, practical guides, and perspectives from the team building Lodol.
October 1, 20265 min read
Claude and ChatGPT Can Now Build Your Automations in Lodol
Ask Claude or ChatGPT for an automation in plain words and it builds the workflow directly in Lodol. From then on, Lodol runs it whenever it should, with your keys kept out of the chat and every run on the record.
Read StoryFrom the Lodol desk
September 2026
Pay per Run, Not per Step: How Lodol Pricing Works
From October 1, every plan includes a monthly allowance of runs and unlimited seats. A run counts once however many steps it takes, and nothing is billed beyond your plan unless you turn on extra runs. Here's how to work out what you need.
September 28, 2026By The Lodol Team5 min read
Five Finance Chores to Hand Off Before the Next Close
The bills inbox, the receipts pile, the Monday revenue number and the month-end P&L. Five ready-made workflows, each built never to guess at a figure, that together use about 240 runs a month: well inside an $18 plan.
September 25, 2026By The Lodol Team7 min read
Outlook, Excel, QuickBooks and Slack, Connected Much Deeper
Outlook grew from 1 action to 54 and Excel from 9 to 58. QuickBooks Online now has 79 actions and 7 triggers, Slack has 79 actions, and Mercury joins with 59. Here's what each one lets your team hand off.
September 23, 2026By The Lodol Team4 min read
Let a Workflow Make a Judgment Call
Some decisions don't fit a rule, like whether an email is a sales lead. Now a workflow can ask that question in plain words, and only that one step uses AI. Everything around it still runs the same way every time.
September 21, 2026By The Lodol Team4 min read
Apps: Put Your Workflows Behind a Screen Your Team Can Use
Build a screen on top of your workflows, without code: charts and numbers from what they produce, tables your team can work through, forms that hand a request to the right workflow, and a button that runs one.
September 17, 2026By The Lodol Team4 min read
Never Let a Lead Go Cold: Five Workflows for Small Sales Teams
The big lead that lands at 6pm, the call nobody wrote up, the new contact who never got a hello. Five ready-made workflows that keep a small sales team fast, and leave every customer email for a person to send.
September 15, 2026By The Lodol Team6 min read
Start From a Workflow That Already Works
Our workflow library opens to everyone: 161 ready-made workflows across 17 job functions, written and tested by our team, each with a page that shows every step before you add it. Connect the apps and it runs.
September 11, 2026By The Lodol Team3 min read
August 2026
What's New in Lodol: August
A plan B when a step fails, Python for the odd calculation, a step that calls any app's API, workflows inside workflows, test runs of a single step, folders, quicker invites and a high-contrast mode.
August 31, 2026By The Lodol Team3 min read
Documents: Write It Down Next to the Work
Every process has a page of notes somewhere. Now it can live in Lodol, in the same folders as the workflows that run it, with version history, a read-only link to share, and export to PDF or Markdown.
August 20, 2026By The Lodol Team3 min read
One Safe Place for Every Key Your Workflows Use
Store an API key once, encrypted and hidden the moment you save it, and let any step use it by name. Settings like a spending limit live alongside it, so changing one updates every workflow that uses it.
August 13, 2026By The Lodol Team3 min read
July 2026
Mission Control for Every Automation You Run
Handing off work you can't see into just moves the worry. How Lodol shows every run step by step, lets you pause, stop or run it again in a click, and emails you the moment one fails.
July 15, 2026By The Lodol Team5 min read
Agents Are Having a Moment. Reliability Is Having a Reckoning.
Agentic AI dazzles in the demo and stumbles in production. Why probabilistic models can't be the deterministic core of mission-critical work, and the design the teams getting durable value have quietly converged on.
July 9, 2026By Ricky Grannis-Vu4 min read
June 2026
How a Small Team Ships Something Real Every Week
Our release notes keep a weekly beat because the team is small, not in spite of it. What's behind it: a short path from problem to fix, small pieces shipped constantly, and reliability as a habit.
June 27, 2026By The Lodol Team4 min read
Automation Is a Team Sport
Workflows outlive whoever built them. Version history with one-click rollback, live presence, pinned comments, roles and an audit log turn a personal script into something a whole team can trust.
June 10, 2026By The Lodol Team4 min read
May 2026
Designing a Canvas You Can Think In
A workflow should read like a flowchart anyone on the team can follow. How we design Lodol's editor so the tool disappears and people think about their work, from Figma-like zoom to the moment of adding a step.
May 22, 2026By The Lodol Team6 min read
Meet the Lodol Developer API
The Developer API lets your own software list workflows, start runs with the values they need, and follow each run. Idempotency keys and per-workspace limits keep it safe to call from production.
May 8, 2026By The Lodol Team6 min read
Notes on Building an Execution Engine That Never Guesses
How Lodol keeps the promise that the workflow you designed is the one that runs: AI only where you put it, a saved place after every step, one owner for every trigger, and a record of every run.
May 6, 2026By The Lodol Team5 min read
January 2026
Investing in America's AI Future
Automation multiplies what one person can do, and it has been America's edge since the Erie Canal. A call for American leadership in AI that puts the tools in workers' hands, now with a source for every figure.
January 27, 2026By Ricky Grannis-Vu8 min read
Lodol's Principles for Reliable AI
Four principles for AI you can trust with critical work: deterministic execution, a record of every run, a person in the loop where it matters, and changes you can undo. Now with how Lodol holds to each.
January 6, 2026By Ricky Grannis-Vu6 min read
Your AI builds it. Lodol runs it.
Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex, or start from a ready-made workflow. Every run is recorded, and you hear the moment one fails.