Identifiers

Every node in an Instant Process diagram must be uniquely identifiable. An identifier is the handle that NEXT (and any other reference) uses to point to a node. There are two ways to produce one: implicit identifiers, derived from the node's description, and explicit identifiers, supplied as a separate token.

This page explains how the two styles interact, when to prefer each, and how to keep identifiers unique.

Implicit identifiers

When you write a node with just a keyword and a description, the description itself acts as the identifier:

ACTIVITY 'Review application'

Here the implicit identifier is Review application. Another node can reference it like so:

ACTIVITY 'Submit' NEXT 'Review application'

Implicit identifiers are convenient because you only write the label once, and everything else refers to it by that same label.

Explicit identifiers

An explicit identifier is a separate token placed between the keyword and the description:

ACTIVITY Review 'Review application'

The identifier is now Review, and references must use that token:

ACTIVITY 'Submit' NEXT Review

Explicit identifiers have two important properties:

• They replace the implicit identifier. Once an explicit identifier is set, the description is no longer referenceable — only the explicit token is.
• They cannot contain spaces. Explicit identifiers are single tokens: Review, Review_1, ReviewApplication — but not Review Application.

Why use explicit identifiers?

Prefer implicit identifiers. A description already acts as the identifier, so reach for an explicit identifier only when you genuinely need one.

Use an explicit identifier when:

• You have two nodes with the same description and need to tell them apart. With implicit identifiers, duplicate descriptions collide; explicit identifiers let each node keep its natural label while remaining unique.
• You have multiple START nodes and want each to be unambiguously referenceable.
• You are hand-authoring and want to rename a description without updating the references that point to it: the explicit identifier stays stable while the label changes.

Mixing implicit and explicit identifiers

You can mix both styles in the same process, even in the same line. References just use whichever identifier the target node has:

ACTIVITY Task_A 'Task' NEXT OtherNode AND 'Node 2'

Here Task_A is explicit, OtherNode is an explicit reference to another node, and 'Node 2' is an implicit reference by description.

Keeping identifiers unique

Instant Process requires that every identifier in a process be unique. Implicit and explicit identifiers share the same namespace — if two nodes resolve to the same identifier, the process is ambiguous.

When this happens, resolve it by:

1. Assigning an explicit identifier to one or both of the conflicting nodes, or
2. Adjusting the description so they no longer collide.

A common example is multiple START nodes: without explicit identifiers, they all resolve to the same implicit name and cannot be referenced distinctly.

START Customer 'Start' NEXT ...
START Supplier 'Start' NEXT ...

Named links

A closely related concept is the named link, which labels a connection (an edge) rather than a node. Named links are only available when NEXT is explicit:

ACTIVITY 'Task' NEXT 'Node 1' 'Description'

See Links and lanes for the full NEXT syntax.