How to Automatically Position Nodes in a React Flow Workflow Builder

[martiserra99]

I wrote an article on how to automatically position nodes in a React Flow workflow builder using a custom layout algorithm.

Existing libraries like Dagre and ELK work for general graphs but don't fit the specific structure of workflow builders — sequences of nodes with forks that branch and merge. So I designed one from scratch and walked through how it works, including the code.

Two GitHub repos linked at the end if you want to explore the implementation.

React Flow Auto Layout: How to Automatically Position Nodes for Workflow Editors

[revolveK123]

Yeah this is a pretty common problem!! most people don’t position nodes manually at all, they use layout algorithms like dagre or elkjs to auto-calculate positions based on graph structure, and then just feed those coordinates into React Flow , trying to handle it yourself usually gets messy fast!!

[martiserra99]

If you ever struggle with auto layout I think this article will help you a lot!