Core Concepts

Understand the architectural building blocks of the Quixa Platform.

Quixa is designed around a structured domain hierarchy that cleanly decouples API definitions from runtime execution graphs and test suites.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   API Collections                      │
│        (OpenAPI / Swagger specs & Endpoints)           │
└───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
                            │ Endpoints used as nodes
┌───────────────────────────▼────────────────────────────┐
│                    Visual Flows                        │
│   (DAG of HTTP steps, delay, conditions, assertions)   │
└───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
                            │ Grouped in execution order
┌───────────────────────────▼────────────────────────────┐
│                    Flow Suites                         │
│ (Sequential / Parallel pipelines, Stop-on-failure)     │
└───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
                            │ Executed to generate
┌───────────────────────────▼────────────────────────────┐
│                 Execution Results                      │
│ (Step traces, HTTP status, latencies, failure logs)    │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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1. Collections

An API Collection represents a service’s API contract (typically imported via OpenAPI 3.0 or Swagger 2.0 specs).

• Endpoint Definitions: Method, path template, request schema, response schemas, and query parameters.
• Auto-Discovery & Spec Drift: Quixa periodically monitors your upstream Swagger endpoints and highlights Drift (pulsing badge) when schemas change, allowing you to diff and approve updates safely.
• Environment Base URLs: Collections can be mapped to different target environments (Dev, Staging, Prod).

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2. Visual Flows (Workflows)

A Flow is a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of orchestration steps. It connects endpoints, custom transformation scripts, loops, and conditional logic.

• Nodes: Individual executable units (HTTP Requests, Switch Routers, For-Loops, Wait timers, Terminal Stop nodes).
• Connections (Wires): Determine dependency execution order and establish data binding lineage.
• Sub-Flows (Flow-as-a-Node): You can nest an entire saved flow inside another flow as a single reusable node, enabling modular architectures (e.g. an OAuth2 Auth Flow subflow node reused across 50 API flows).
• Flow Variables: Centralized key-value pairs scoped to the workflow.

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3. Flow Suites & Test Suites

A Suite is an execution pipeline that groups multiple flows together to form continuous integration test runs.

• Sequential Execution: Runs flows one after another in specified pipeline order.
• Parallel Execution: Spawns concurrent execution workers with configurable max concurrency to drastically reduce CI pipeline execution times.
• Stop on Failure: Halts subsequent suite flows immediately if a critical dependency fails.
• Suite Drag-and-Drop Reordering: Intuitive re-indexing of pipeline execution order directly from the sidebar.

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4. Execution Traces & Real-Time Monitoring

Every time a flow or suite executes, Quixa generates an immutable Execution Record:

• Topological Wave History: Visual step-by-step audit of which nodes executed, which branches were skipped by condition, and which nodes joined at barriers.
• Wire Protocol Traces: Full request headers, query strings, bodies, status codes, and response payloads.
• Latency Profiles: Nanosecond-accurate execution timers breakdown per microservice call.
• Assertion Evaluations: Validation checks asserting response status codes, payload contracts, and response latency SLAs.

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5. Workspaces & ReBAC Access Control

Quixa operates as a multi-tenant platform with fine-grained Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC):

• Tenants & Organizations: Strict isolation of flows, collections, and credentials between customer organizations.
• Defined System Roles: PlatformAdmin, TenantAdmin, Developer, and Viewer.
• Resource Matrix: Granular ReadOnly vs. ReadWrite privilege assignment on individual collections, folders, and flow hierarchies.