5. Process and Code Flow

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
- Talking Heads "Once In A Lifetime" [Album: Remain in Light]

Graph data can represent more than just the typical values used for data analysis. It can also represent the process flows and sequence of operations that create data or products. The process flows can be broad and the steps general, like the drafting of Competency Questions followed by data conversion, upload, and querying steps as illustrated in this project. Graph data can also represent the micro-steps of code flows to capture script execution order, inputs, outputs, and dependencies. Both process flow and code flow data can exist in the same graph. Broad and detailed flows can also be interconnected, as shown in this chapter.

Machine-readable, queryable automation processes can be constructed when the process steps, files, and metadata are represented in the graph. It becomes possible to query next steps, previous steps, required files, inputs and outputs, and dependencies. Simple examples are provided in the next sections.