Embedded apps (Windows)

Cerevisor can embed real Win32 applications as nodes on the canvas. The actual Outlook, Excel, or Word window appears inside the node; you interact with it normally, and agents in your workflow can pull data from it.

Windows-only feature. The macOS build hides this entire surface (CAPS.embeddedApps is false on Mac). Workflows authored on Windows that include embedded-app nodes will render placeholders on macOS so the .cerevisor file round-trips cleanly.

Supported apps

Curated presets: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook (classic), Outlook (new), Edge, File Explorer, Notepad. Beyond the presets, you can embed any visible window — anything Alt-Tab shows — by picking it from a live window list.

Structured data feeds (an agent reading the app's content) are available for Outlook today: inbox, focused email, and calendar. The other apps embed visually — you see and interact with them on the canvas, but there's no data extraction for them yet.

Each app's data-source integration lives in a single registry; adding a new app is a one-entry change.

Adding an embedded app to the canvas

Two paths:

1. Drag (or click) the Embed app tile in the agent palette.
2. Right-click canvas → Embed app.

Both open the Embedded App Picker: curated presets on the left, a live list of every open window on the right (refreshed every second). Pick a preset and Cerevisor launches the app for you (or finds the running instance) and attaches to its window; pick an open window and Cerevisor attaches to that exact window.

The embedded app appears as a node on your canvas with the app icon + name and the real native window rendered inside it.

Window embedding mechanics

Behind the scenes, Cerevisor uses a single shared PowerShell child process running window-embed.ps1 that multiplexes Attach/Move/Detach calls across every active embedded-app node. One PowerShell child handles all your embedded apps (Add-Type compilation is slow; per-embed children would be wasteful).

The embedded node:

• Re-parents the native window to Cerevisor's window region.
• Resizes/moves the native window to track the canvas node.
• Lets you interact with the native window normally in live mode — a toggle on the node switches between a scaled preview and a fully interactive view, and a focus mode hides the canvas chrome.

Connecting embedded apps to agents

Drag from the embedded app node's data handle to an agent. For apps with data feeds, a selection popup opens listing what's available. For Outlook:

• Inbox snapshot: the latest 25 messages — subjects, senders, received-at.
• Currently focused email: subject + body of the email selected in Outlook now.
• Today's calendar: every event on today's schedule.
• This week's calendar: every event in the next 7 days.

Pick a feed. The connection is created, and the agent reads the feed's live data when the workflow runs.

For apps without data feeds yet (Word, Excel, Edge, and the rest), the wire is dropped rather than saved — you can't create a dead data connection.

How agents consume embedded data

When the workflow starts, Cerevisor resolves each data-feed connection: it fetches the feed fresh (so it reflects what you're looking at right now), serializes it as text, and injects it into the target agent's input. Free-text fields like email subjects and bodies are sanitized before injection, and content from outside senders is clearly marked as untrusted so agents treat it as data, not instructions.

Removing an embedded app

Click the remove (×) button in the embedded app node's header. The native window detaches and returns to its normal state.

The Embedded Apps Dock at the bottom-left of the canvas shows every active embed; clicking an icon flies the canvas to that node and focuses it.

When it works

• The target app must be installed on the same machine running Cerevisor. Preset apps are launched automatically if they aren't running; picked windows must already be open.
• For Outlook embedding, a desktop Outlook (classic or the new Outlook for Windows app) is required — Outlook in a browser tab is just a browser window.

When it doesn't work

• Cross-machine remoting (Citrix, Remote Desktop) breaks the Win32 window-parenting. Embedded apps need to be on the same desktop.
• UWP / Store apps have inconsistent window-parenting behavior. Win32 desktop apps are the supported target.
• Some apps run in an isolated process that won't let another window re-parent it. Rare, but you'll hit it occasionally.

Persistence in .cerevisor files

Embedded app nodes are saved in the workflow file. When you re-open the workflow:

• On Windows: Cerevisor re-attaches to each embedded app — relaunching preset apps if needed. If attaching fails, the node shows the error.
• On macOS: a placeholder renders showing the app's name and "Windows-only" tag. The workflow file is unmodified: re-saving keeps the embedded-app config intact.

Privacy

Embedded apps are local. Nothing about what Outlook or Excel contains leaves your machine through Cerevisor unless an agent reads the data and that agent's provider is a remote API (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.). The embedding itself is purely visual + IPC.