What do the colors in Developer Console's Save Order tab represent?

Question

Background/Explanation: If you use Developer Console, and you open a Log file with the Analysis or All Perspective's enabled (Debug > Switch Perspective), you gain a "Save Order" tab that shows you the Save Order of execution for your various apex, workflow, validations, etc.

In this Save Order, things are color coded, but I cannot find any information online to determine the reason for these color codes or what they represent.

In my org, I am currently looking at a Save Order that runs the same apex more than once (expected because Save Order reruns apex after DML), but at the beginning of the Save Order the Trigger is listed in RED and then when its listed again later in the Save Order the same trigger is listed as ORANGE.

The Salesforce documentation I found on this subject does mention that they are color-coded, but does not go into any detail as to why, or how:

https://releasenotes.docs.salesforce.com/en-us/winter14/release-notes/rn_186_developer_console_save_order_debug_view.htm

Question: What is the difference in color meant to represent?

Answer 1

According to the Winter 14 Release Notes

The Save Order tab displays a color-coded timeline of DML actions. For each DML action taken, save order elements are shown as boxcars in the timeline.

Unfortunately I cannot find any official documentation that specifies what the colors actually represent, but from my experience they are as follows.

• Red = Before Trigger
• Green = Validation Rules
• Orange = After Triggers
• Blue = Assignment Rules
• Purple = Workflow Rules (I think Process Builder & Flow are in here also)

Answer 2

Official documentation for the Execution Overview Save Order.

The following colors are used to differentiate between elements:
Color : Type
Red : Before trigger
Orange : After trigger
Green : Validation rule
Blue : Assignment rule
Purple : Workflow rule

Answer 3

I don't have any source to confirm this, but from experience the only difference in the color-coding (besides the obvious things like validation is a different color than workflow) is to differentiate between triggers that have fired on a before event, and triggers that have fired on an after event.