Port Order and Renaming

You can customize both the vertical display order and the display names of a node's input and output ports. This helps untangle crossing edges on the canvas and lets you label ports according to their specific protocol role (such as Session Key or Handshake Nonce).

Reordering Ports

• On a node card, drag the grip handle (⋮⋮) at the far left of a port row and drop it above or below another port on the same side (inputs with inputs, outputs with outputs).
• In the node Properties modal's Ports tab, drag the grip handle or click the Up / Down arrow buttons to reorder ports.
• Newly created nodes start with a key-first default port order (placing Key, Private Key, Public Key, or Secret Key at the top of the input list). Nodes in previously saved workflow files keep their saved port order; click Reset Order in the Properties modal to apply the default order without losing custom port names.
• For fixed-port nodes, changing port order is purely visual and does not affect execution. For dynamic-input nodes whose operation depends on input sequence (such as Byte Concatenator), the top-to-bottom port list order directly determines the concatenation order.

Renaming Ports

• Double-click a port name directly on the node card, or edit the name field in the Properties modal's Ports tab. Press Enter or click outside to confirm, or press Esc to cancel.
• Leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed automatically. A port name cannot be empty, cannot contain /, ,, (, or ), and on fixed-port nodes cannot duplicate another port name on the same side (input and output sides may share a name).
• When a fixed port is renamed, hovering over the port displays a tooltip showing its permanent internal id alongside its custom display name.
• Ports whose schema is synchronized from another node (such as the output ports of Switch, which mirror the baseline ValueSet, or the reserved Set port on ValueSet) cannot be renamed or reordered directly on that node.

Port IDs Remain Constant

Edges, workflow execution, the headless CLI, and saved workflow files (.ncw and draft JSON) reference fixed ports by their permanent internal port id (for example, key, plaintext, iv)—not by their display name. Reordering or renaming fixed ports never breaks existing connections or alters cryptographic output. Custom display names are shown in the canvas UI, error messages, and the Data Inspector.

Exception: In the Script node, each dynamic port's name is also the variable identifier used inside the script source code, so renaming a Script port updates its port id and connected edges together.