As the number and diversity of computer-aided VLSI design tools grows, there is an increasing interest in workflow management. In this paper we describe an enhancement to the task schema approach to workj5?ow management that allows for the automatic generation of workjlows. Such a capability can significantly enhance designer productivity. It has been implemented in the Dedal program.As the number and diversity of computer-aided design tools used by VLSI circuit designers continues to grow, there is an increasing need for tools that can help manage the design process. One such class of tools is known as workflow managers which help to organize, monitor, and automate complex processes. Through the use of wori$ow management, also known as task management, designers are freed up to think in terms of toolindependent procedures rather than in terms of specific application programs and data files.Most approaches to task management are based on flow descriptions that must be prepared in advance thereby making them somewhat inflexible. Examples of such approaches are those based on flow maps to describe design tasks [2-41 and those that use extension languages to describe tasks [5,, an alternate approach to task management was described. This approach, embodied in the Hercules Task Manager, employs the task schema to specify the rules by which tools and data may be combined to create a flow. It maintains the advantages of previous approaches while giving the designer maximal control over the design A simple design task, which can be thought of as an elementary design function, consists of a target entity, which must be simple, and one or more input entities, which may be either simple or compound. The use of a compound entity as an input means that any of simple entities that constitute the compound entity can be used as inputs to the design task. 1040-8186-7573-X/96 $5.00 0 1996 IEEE