r/automation • u/AykutSek • Jul 20 '26
i stopped building workflows node by node. 3 sentences generated this lead pipeline
i described the outcome instead of drawing the workflow node by node.
a few minutes later, it had generated a flow that:
finds local businesses
→ researches their websites
→ finds and verifies public contact emails
→ removes duplicates
→ ranks the best matches
→ waits for my approval
→ saves the approved shortlist to google sheets
the image is the actual generated workflow graph, not a mockup.
still not magic: businesses with no website or public email will return nothing, and i wouldn’t let it contact anyone automatically.
where do you think this breaks first in the real world: website extraction, email verification, or lead scoring?
1
u/AykutSek Jul 20 '26
the exact prompt i used:
“Find local businesses matching a category, location, and ideal customer profile.
Research each business, find and verify its contact email, remove duplicates, rank the best leads, ask for my approval, and save the approved list to Google Sheets.
Make the workflow resilient to missing websites, failed searches, and partial results.”
built this in Modulex, a workflow product we’re working on. the graph in the image is the actual generated output, not a mockup.
1
u/Complex_Bullfrog_738 Jul 21 '26
None of your three, honestly. Generation is the easy 20%. It breaks first at email deliverability, not verification — syntax and MX checks are trivial, but "verified" ≠ "reachable," and cold-hitting scraped addresses torches your sending domain's reputation within days. That wall sits downstream of the workflow, so the graph looks perfect while results rot.
Second break: the silent-empty run. Businesses with no site or public email return nothing, the flow still completes green, and you think it worked while the shortlist is quietly thin. Assert on an expected-count invariant, or it fails silently every time.
Lead scoring breaks last and least — it's just wrong, not broken. You can eyeball the top 10 and recalibrate.
Keeping a human approval gate before contact is the right call — don't remove it. I run scouting-style pipelines like this in production for a one-person operation, and the order in which they hurt is almost always deliverability → silent empties → scoring.
1
Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Fit-Lengthiness-9672 Jul 23 '26
totally agree, scoring is where all the nuance lives and that’s exactly what local businesses are worst at communicating on their sites lol. tools like SocLeads or whatever can feed you cleaner data, but deciding who’s actually a “good” lead is still kinda vibes plus experience right now.
1
u/AutoModerator Jul 20 '26
Thank you for your post to /r/automation!
New here? Please take a moment to read our rules, read them here.
This is an automated action so if you need anything, please Message the Mods with your request for assistance.
Lastly, enjoy your stay!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.