Types, conversion and text

The graph is strictly typed. A whole-number output is not silently accepted by a text input, and a drop that does not type-check is refused rather than coerced.

The types

Values carry one of five primitive families plus structs and lists:

Family	Looks like	Notes
Text	Kitchen	Anything at all converts to text
Number	21.5	Double and Float are distinct primitives
Whole number	43	Int and Long are distinct primitives
Yes or no	true
Date & time	2026-08-24T18:00+02:00	Its own type, its own port colour, its own picker
Struct	{ level: 43, isCharging: false }	An object with named fields
List	["a", "b"]	List-ness is an axis of its own, not a type

Type checking is invariant on primitives: Int in, Int out. What is not invariant is a struct, which is width-subtyped — so a port declared as “any object” accepts every struct and nothing else.

That is what Break Struct’s input is. Deliberately not a wildcard: a wildcard would let a number or a date be wired in, where the node would sprout no output ports and look broken.

Autocast

When a data drop fails the type check, Easymatic asks its conversion table whether the two types convert. If they do, it drops a pre-configured Convert node into the wire and shows it on the canvas.

You see the node appear. You can retype it, delete it, or set what it does when the conversion fails. A drop with no possible conversion is still refused.

The rule for what converts:

• Every primitive pair converts, including failable ones like text → number.
• Anything at all converts to text.
• Nothing converts to a struct.

Because the conversion is a node you can see — carrying its own If it fails field — Convert never throws. It always produces a value of the requested type. That permissiveness is only safe while the node stays on the canvas, which is why autocast inserts one rather than converting invisibly.

Number and Whole number name a family, not a Kotlin type. When a conversion feeds a port that is specifically Long or Float, the Convert node’s output narrows to match its consumer.

Text

Build text is the template node. Its Template field takes {A}, {B} and {C} slots filled from three inputs, which is how a bare 43 becomes Battery is 43%.

Everything renders as text the same way, everywhere — in a notification, in a Build text slot, in a wired config field, in the console, and in an If comparison. A struct renders as compact JSON, so a struct converted to text can be fed straight back into Read from JSON.

JSON

Read from JSON takes a dot path with array indexing — main.temp, items.0.price, items[0].price — and a declared result type. A path that does not match lands on the node’s fallback rather than halting the macro.

Wire an HTTP response’s body into it, or a struct that has been converted to text.

Dates and times

A timestamp is a Date & time, not a number. It is invariant against whole numbers — bridging the two is exactly the visible job of a Convert node — and it renders as ISO-8601 with an offset.

Parsing is deliberately lenient. All of these are accepted:

1756051200000        epoch milliseconds
1756051200           epoch seconds
2026-08-24T18:00Z    ISO, with or without an offset
2026-08-24           a date
18:00                today at 18:00

That last form is what makes “only after 18:00” expressible, and it re-resolves every time the node is read.

Ordering comparisons parse both sides before comparing, because ISO text does not sort chronologically across offsets. Equals still compares text.

A duration is not a date and time. A Wait node’s duration, a poll interval and a schedule’s elapsedMs stay plain numbers, and a time of day stays an HH:mm string with a clock face rather than a calendar. 25:99 is clamped to 23:59 rather than being read as 1 599 minutes past midnight, which is not a time.

Current time is the only source of a moment that needs no trigger. Every other one arrives as a field of a trigger’s struct.