Enable / Disable a Flow

README.md

Here are a few nodes that you can use to dynamically enable / disable a flow.

My use case: I often create demos using Node-RED. I might have 6 Node-RED flow tabs that each demonstrate a particular capability of a device. The flows each control the device in various ways. If you forget to delete a wire (purposefully breaking the flow), the demos on the various tabs stomp on each other. I wanted to create a "Stop" / "Spigot" node / technique to turn on/off a flow without breaking a flow. If I deploy or share the 6 tabs with all of the flows fully enabled, the demo is a disaster. If I post the flows with missing (broken) wires, you (or me... months later) would not be able to figure out what I'm doing. You would need to understand the flow to recreate the missing wire (obvious to me today but impossible for you).

After some discussion on the Node-RED Slack channel, I build this simple set of nodes using a flow context. Not rocket science but definitely a useful snippet.

flow.json

[{"id":"f2a57185.7d4d38","type":"inject","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"ON","topic":"","payload":"true","payloadType":"bool","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"x":110,"y":80,"wires":[["58ebe09e.68959"]]},{"id":"9b1f3cdb.63aef8","type":"inject","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"OFF","topic":"","payload":"false","payloadType":"bool","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"x":110,"y":120,"wires":[["58ebe09e.68959"]]},{"id":"afe31c2e.19227","type":"switch","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"Is this flow enabled?","property":"start-stop","propertyType":"flow","rules":[{"t":"true"}],"checkall":"true","outputs":1,"x":340,"y":200,"wires":[["4bb6caa6.9ee14c"]]},{"id":"ee6a7083.313a08","type":"inject","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"","topic":"","payload":"","payloadType":"date","repeat":"1","crontab":"","once":true,"x":130,"y":200,"wires":[["afe31c2e.19227","42b522a3.ed6b74"]]},{"id":"4bb6caa6.9ee14c","type":"function","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"Generate Random Data","func":"msg.payload = Math.round(Math.random()*100);\nreturn msg;","outputs":1,"noerr":0,"x":590,"y":200,"wires":[["9b9a4783.79fdd"]]},{"id":"9b9a4783.79fdd","type":"debug","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"","active":true,"console":"false","complete":"false","x":810,"y":200,"wires":[]},{"id":"ec32d77d.694f5","type":"debug","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"","active":true,"console":"false","complete":"false","x":530,"y":100,"wires":[]},{"id":"42b522a3.ed6b74","type":"function","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"","func":"var enabled = flow.get('start-stop')||false;\nmsg.payload = enabled;\nreturn msg;","outputs":1,"noerr":0,"x":290,"y":280,"wires":[["646c1496.fbacf4"]]},{"id":"646c1496.fbacf4","type":"debug","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"","active":false,"console":"false","complete":"false","x":450,"y":280,"wires":[]},{"id":"58ebe09e.68959","type":"change","z":"21c52910.4ca56e","name":"Enable / Disable this flow","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"start-stop","pt":"flow","to":"payload","tot":"msg"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":310,"y":100,"wires":[["ec32d77d.694f5"]]}]

Thank you, just what I was looking for.