Node Reference

QUBIQ ships 26 node types across nine categories. Each has its own page with the settings that matter, a worked example showing the message going in and the message coming out, and the mistakes that cost people an afternoon.

A pipeline message is an envelope: payload is the data, and the envelope also carries metadata such as topic and the execution context. Nodes read and write payload unless stated otherwise.

When a node fails, the branch stops — unless you have said what should happen instead. Two features cover that, and they compose: the Catch node reports a failure out of band, and any node's error output carries its own failure down a branch of its own so the flow can carry on.

A machine-readable summary of every node and its exact default configuration is in the pipeline node reference.

Common

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
Inject	Starts a flow on a schedule, or once at startup	Anything on a clock — hourly rollups, nightly exports, a poll every 30 seconds
Link	Sends messages between pipelines without joining their graphs	One expensive read feeding several independent consumers
RBE (Filter)	Passes a message only when the value actually changed	Immediately after any subscribe, unless you genuinely want every sample
Switch 1.0.0	Sends a message down a different branch depending on its value	Sorting one feed into several treatments — critical alarms to a pager, the rest to a log
Timer 1.0.4	Delays, debounces, or watches for silence — one timer per topic	Watching a heartbeat, so silence raises an alarm instead of passing unnoticed

Realtime

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
Industrial I/O	Reads, writes or subscribes to namespace tags	Reading several tags at once on a schedule, behind an Inject
Alarm	Subscribes to alarm lifecycle events	Notifying someone when a critical alarm is raised

Datasource

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
SQL Query	Runs SQL against a database connection	Writing production, downtime or quality records to a reporting database
MongoDB	Find, insert, update or delete documents	Storing records whose fields differ from one to the next
QuestDB	High-speed time-series ingestion, or a SQL query	Storing a calculated value you want to chart over time

Transform

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
Python Script	Arbitrary Python, sandboxed	Computing something from several inputs — a rate, an average, an OEE figure
Batch Transform	Transforms every item of a collection, in parallel	Converting units, renaming fields or enriching every row of a result set
Array Iterator	Splits an array into one message per element	One outbound API call, or one write, per row of a result set
Join	Collects items or messages back into a single array	Recombining after an Array Iterator so a downstream step can act on the whole set

AI

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
AI	Classifies, extracts or summarises with AI	Classifying free-text operator comments into a reportable column

Notification

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
Send Email	Sends an email through a saved SMTP connection	Alarm notification and escalation
Telegram	Sends messages, or receives commands, via a bot	Notifying a shift group where people actually look
WhatsApp	Sends WhatsApp messages, or receives them by webhook	Escalation to people who will not read email out of hours
On-Call Roster	Resolves who is on shift into recipients	Any notification that should reach whoever is on duty rather than a fixed list

API

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
REST API	Publishes an HTTP endpoint, or calls one	Accepting orders, recipes or schedules pushed by an ERP or MES
HTTP Response	Sends the reply for a REST ingress pipeline	Every path through an ingress pipeline — success and failure alike

Message Bus

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
Message In 1.0.8	Starts the pipeline when a message arrives on a subject	Running a pipeline from a screen — a Send message event action — without a REST route
Message Out 1.0.8	Sends a message on a subject, or asks and waits for the reply	Telling open screens that something happened — a batch finished, a limit was crossed
Message Reply 1.0.8	Answers the request that started this run	Ending a request/response pipeline, success and failure alike

Output

Node	What it does	Reach for it when
Debug	Shows a node’s output in the Debug panel	While building anything — it is the fastest way to see a real payload
Catch 1.0.4	Reports failures from other nodes in the same pipeline	Telling somebody a pipeline broke — a Telegram message, an email, a page

Patterns

Scheduled aggregation

Inject (cron 5 * * * *) → SQL (current work order) → Industrial I/O (read)
  → Python (compute OEE) → QuestDB (ingress)

Event-driven notification, to whoever is on shift

Alarm (raised, critical) → On-Call Roster → Send Email

Inbound integration

REST API (ingress POST /api/v1/orders) → Python (validate) → MongoDB (insert) → HTTP Response (201)

Noise-suppressed bridge

Industrial I/O (subscribe) → RBE (gap 0.5) → QuestDB (ingress)

Fan-out with recombination

SQL (select rows) → Array Iterator → Python (enrich) → Join → REST API (egress, one batch)

Free text into a reportable column

Inject (15m) → SQL (uncategorised comments) → Array Iterator
  → AI (classify) → SQL (update category)

Routing one feed into several treatments

                        ┌─ 1 → Alarm (raise) → On-Call Roster → Send Email
Industrial I/O → Switch ┼─ 2 → QuestDB (ingress)
                        └─ 3 → Debug

Silence as an event

Industrial I/O (subscribe Pumps/*) → Timer (watch for silence, 30s) → Alarm (raise)

Recovering from a failure in-flow

                 ┌─ out   → compute → write-db
Inject → fetch ──┤
                 └─ error → Python (last known value) → compute → write-db

Reporting every failure in a pipeline

Catch (all nodes) → Python (shape a row) → SQL (dead-letter table)

Two-way chat

Telegram (receive /data) → Python (validate args) → SQL (query) → Telegram (send → chatId)

A pipeline as a service other pipelines and screens can ask

Message In (recipe.lookup) → SQL (select recipe) → Message Reply (OK)
Catch                                            → Message Reply (Error)

Next

→ Execution & triggering