Feature Request Folder Hierarchical Flow Organization / Folder Structure

[AphofisX]

Feature Request: Hierarchical Flow Organization / Folder Structure

Summary

Add support for organizing flows in a hierarchical folder structure, similar to what Blockly offers, to improve navigation and management of complex Node-RED projects.

Current Problem

In larger Node-RED installations with multiple automation areas (e.g., coffee machine monitoring, aquarium control, security systems, garden automation), the current flat tab structure becomes unmanageable:

• All flows appear as a single row of tabs
• No way to group related flows together
• Difficult to navigate when you have 10+ flows
• No visual hierarchy or organization possible
• Groups within flows become cluttered and hard to overview

Proposed Solution

Implement a folder-based organization system in the flow tabs area, similar to Blockly's category structure:

📁 🏠 Smart Home
  ├── 📁 ☕ Kitchen
  │   ├── Coffee Machine Control
  │   ├── Coffee Monitoring
  │   └── Coffee Statistics
  ├── 📁 🐠 Aquarium
  │   ├── Temperature Control
  │   ├── Lighting System
  │   ├── Filter Control
  │   └── Water Quality Monitoring
  └── 📁 🚪 Security
      ├── Door Sensors
      └── Alarm System

Expected Benefits

1. Better Organization: Logical grouping of related flows
2. Improved Navigation: Collapsible folders reduce visual clutter
3. Scalability: Easily manage 20+ flows without losing overview
4. User Experience: Similar to file explorers users are familiar with
5. Project Structure: Better organization for team environments

Use Case Example

I'm managing a home automation system with:

• Coffee machine flow (monitoring, statistics, alerts)
• Aquarium system (temperature, lighting, filtering, feeding)
• Security flows (doors, cameras, alarms)
• Garden automation (irrigation, sensors)

Currently, I have 12+ tabs in a single row, making it hard to quickly find the right flow for maintenance or debugging.

Similar Implementations

• Blockly: Excellent folder-based organization for code blocks
• Home Assistant: Dashboard organization with folders
• Grafana: Dashboard folders for better organization
• VS Code: File explorer with collapsible folders

Proposed Implementation Ideas

1. Right-click context menu on tabs: "Create Folder", "Move to Folder"
2. Drag & Drop flows between folders
3. Collapsible folder tree in sidebar or above current tab area
4. Folder-level operations: Export/Import entire folder
5. Breadcrumb navigation when inside folders

Alternative Solutions Considered

• Naming conventions (e.g., "AQ-Temperature", "AQ-Lighting") - but this only provides visual grouping
• Multiple Node-RED instances - adds complexity and resource overhead
• Current Groups feature - becomes cluttered with many flows

Impact

This feature would significantly improve the user experience for anyone managing complex Node-RED installations, making it more suitable for larger home automation projects and professional environments.

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This request comes from practical daily use of Node-RED for home automation with multiple subsystems. The current flat structure becomes a real bottleneck when managing 10+ flows.

since 2018 to 2023
I previously managed 170+ automations in Blockly (120 for marine aquarium control) - this was only possible due to the folder structure. Without it, I would have been completely lost.

[gregorius]

I also manage my flows by "flow tabs", i.e., larger systems are a combination of reusable flows, each being a single tab. For example, I have a flow that does install, publish, push for my packages developed in Node-RED for Node-RED. For example the FlowHub node package is developed as a flow which in turn uses the install, publish, push flow to install the package locally, to push it to GitHub and to publish it to NPM.

To manage this setup I use the flowhub package integrated into Node-RED. The FlowHub sidebar contains a list of flows:

Top half are the flows hosted in my github repository (is private), bottom shows a check for whether I have already imported the flow into NR.

For organisation, I have convention of naming my flow using "[topic] name" where the topic (as shown in the screenshot) becomes a category. The folder structure only has a depth of one, i.e. there aren't sub-sub-folders.

An example of the folder structure that FlowHub creates in GitHub, check the flow test suite repository. That repository is the location to which flows are posted when I do a push inside NR from my FlowHub sidebar.

Documentation of flows is done using the tab documentation, that is then shown on the corresponding web page:

In that way, documentation of flows lives with the flows and everything is self-contained.

That is my solution to the problem of flow management.

[AphofisX]

Yes thats nice idea but not the same as blockly folder management
why subflows why not in subflow create folders to put flows inside i know must be down compatible to other versions but is ist so hard to coding some feature.
node-red is very structured and clear but very poor when it comes to managing or storing flows