Since last week, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other AI tools that support MCP can build workflows directly in Lodol. You describe what you want, your AI builds it in your workspace, and from then on Lodol runs it, on a schedule or the moment something happens.
How close the first version comes depends mostly on what you ask. AI tools are good at filling in gaps, and a workflow is the one place you don't want gaps filled with guesses, because it will repeat the same guess on every run. Here's how to brief your AI so the first version is close to right, and how to check it before it runs on its own.
Start with "Use Lodol"
If your AI tool has several things connected, begin with "Use Lodol:" so it builds the workflow in your workspace instead of writing you a script. You don't need to explain how Lodol works: AI tools build from Lodol's own guide to workflows, and Lodol checks what they make.
Say what starts it
Every workflow starts in one of three ways, and the words you use pick one:
- "When a payment comes in…" asks for a trigger, which starts a run each time something happens in an app.
- "Every weekday at 8:00…" asks for a schedule. Schedules use your own time zone unless you name another.
- "When I run it, for a client I choose…" asks for a workflow you start yourself.
Be exact about the event. "A new email from anyone at harborsupply.com" is better than "supplier emails", and it also keeps your run count down, because a trigger that wakes for every email in an inbox runs once for every one of them.
Name the places
Paste the link to the spreadsheet and name the tab. List the column headings, in order. Name the Slack channel, and the email addresses of the people involved. These are the details an AI can't know, and the ones it would otherwise have to invent.
If you don't know one yet, say so. Your AI leaves out what it wasn't told, and anything still to fill in, like which spreadsheet a trigger should watch, is listed for you before the workflow goes live.
Describe the steps the way you'd brief a colleague
Write the rules in your own words, with the numbers in them: "only payments over $1,000", "skip anything from our own domain", "round to the nearest dollar". Say what the end result should look like, such as the columns of the row or the wording of the message. You don't need to know which app action does what. Your AI finds the apps and actions; your job is to say what should happen.
Say what happens when something's missing
This is the sentence that's easiest to leave out, and the one that matters most. Real data is messy: a PDF won't open, a total is smudged, a customer leaves the email field blank. Tell your AI what to do in each case, or it will pick something for you.
- Missing values: "If you can't read the total, leave it blank and write 'check' in the Notes column. Never guess a figure."
- Failures: "If posting to Slack fails, email me instead." A workflow can have a plan B for a step that fails.
- Repeats: "Never log the same email twice." A workflow can label what it has handled, or remember the last thing it processed from one run to the next.
- Quiet days: "If there's nothing new, end without posting anything." Or the opposite, if you'd rather hear that it ran.
When a decision doesn't fit a rule, say that too: "Only post the emails where the sender is asking to buy something, and send me the ones you're not sure about." A workflow can make that kind of call in plain words, and send the borderline cases down a path of their own instead of guessing. Here's how judgment calls work.
Say where a person decides
For anything that sends to a customer, pays someone, posts in public or deletes, say "ask me first". A Request approval step pauses the run until the right person approves, rejects or replies, from Lodol, their inbox or Slack, and the run carries on with their answer. Say who should decide, and what should happen if nobody answers in time. For replies to customers, "write a draft, don't send it" works too.
A brief with all of it
Here's what that adds up to, for a workflow that files bills:
Use Lodol: when a new email with a PDF attached arrives in our bills@ inbox in Gmail, read the supplier, invoice number, invoice date and total from the PDF, and add a row to the Bills tab of [link to the sheet] with the columns Received, Supplier, Invoice number, Date, Total and Notes. If any of those can't be read, leave it blank and write "check" in Notes. Never guess a figure, and never log the same email twice. For bills over $5,000, ask dana@ourcompany.com to approve before you create the bill in QuickBooks Online; if she rejects it, write "rejected" in Notes. Bills under $5,000 go into QuickBooks straight away.
It's longer than "automate our bills", and every extra sentence removes a guess. One thing to know: reading the figures out of a PDF usually means an AI step, which runs on your own Anthropic, OpenAI or Gemini account, so connect one in Lodol first.
Before you turn it on
- Ask for it back in plain words. "Walk me through what this workflow does, step by step, and what happens if the PDF can't be read." Your AI can read the workflow it built, and a mismatch with what you meant is easiest to spot here.
- Open the link and read the steps. Each step reads like a sentence. Check the trigger's filter, the sheet, the channel and the approver.
- Connect the apps. Your AI can't connect apps for you, by design. Any step whose app isn't connected yet has a Connect button. It's a one-time setup for each app.
- Test it on something safe. A test run is a real run: an email it sends is sent, and a row it writes is written. Point it at a copy of your sheet or your own address first. Press Run in the editor, or ask your AI to run it and read the result.
- Turn it on. From then on it runs on its trigger or schedule, whether or not your AI tool is open, and every run is recorded step by step.
When it isn't quite right
Ask for the change the same way you asked for the workflow: "Only log bills from suppliers on this list." Your AI changes the workflow you already have. Its changes go into the workflow's version history like anyone else's edit, so on paid plans you can see exactly what changed and roll back in a click.
If a run fails, you get an email straight away. Ask your AI to look at the failed run: it reads the same run you do, works out what went wrong and fixes the workflow.
What your AI can't do
It never sees your passwords or API keys. Apps are connected in Lodol itself and workflows use keys by name, so your AI builds with the name while the value never appears in the chat. It can't connect apps or manage your members, billing or secrets. And it can only do what your own role allows, with the permissions you left ticked when you connected it. More on what a connected AI can and can't do.
Write the brief, then let your AI build it.
Connect your AI tool from our homepage or the Connect AI page in Lodol, and see the setup steps for each tool. No workspace yet? Start free.