# Introducing Custom Nodes and the Losant Node Catalog

**URL:** <https://forums.losant.com/t/introducing-custom-nodes-and-the-losant-node-catalog/1062>\
**Category:** Platform Updates\
**Created:** [August 9, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://forums.losant.com/t/introducing-custom-nodes-and-the-losant-node-catalog/1062 "2018-08-09T19:55:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Brandon\_Cannaday](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forums.losant.com/brandon_cannaday/32/14_2.png) [@Brandon\_Cannaday](https://forums.losant.com/u/Brandon_Cannaday)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://forums.losant.com/t/introducing-custom-nodes-and-the-losant-node-catalog/1062/1 "2018-08-09T19:55:30Z")

</div>

## Custom Nodes and the Losant Node Catalog

Today’s update provides a powerful new way to extend the functionality of Losant’s workflow engine. With the introduction of [Custom Nodes](https://docs.losant.com/workflows/custom-nodes/overview/), you can easily develop integrations to third-party services, create custom data processing routines, and build any other functionality specific to your business or application.

Along with the release of Custom Nodes, we’ve also launched the [Losant Node Catalog](https://github.com/Losant/workflow-node-catalog), which is a public repository of contributed nodes. The Node Catalog is a great way for Losant partners to get their product or service in front of the Losant developer community.

## Other Updates

- [Device Tags](https://docs.losant.com/dashboards/context-variables/#device-tags) are now supported as a dashboard context variable type.
- [Device State](https://docs.losant.com/rest-api/device/#state-stream) and [Device Command](https://docs.losant.com/rest-api/device/#command-stream) streaming API endpoints are now available.
- We’ve changed how [workflows are imported](https://docs.losant.com/workflows/overview/#import-export) to more closely align with user behavior.
- Descriptions can now be added to dashboard blocks.

More details on the blog:

> **[Introducing Custom Nodes and the Losant Node Catalog](https://www.losant.com/blog/platform-update-20180807)**
>
> With Custom Nodes and the Losant Node Catalog, we've provided a powerful new way to extend the functionality of the Losant Workflow Engine. Learn more.