Automations

Rule

Automations are the user-facing umbrella for agent-executed tasks that fire in response to events or on a cron schedule. Scheduled and Event are the two trigger types. Each automation is a markdown resource under jobs/ with YAML frontmatter describing when and how it fires, and a body containing natural-language instructions the agent follows.

Recurring Jobs is the legacy name and API for scheduled automations. manage-jobs, jobs/, and /agent#jobs remain stable compatibility surfaces. Use manage-automations for new personal or organization automations, including per-automation model overrides and MCP allowlists. Keep manage-jobs for existing schedule-only integrations and delivery metadata.

The Two Trigger Types

Type	Fires when	Key field
schedule	Cron expression matches (same as recurring jobs)	schedule (cron)
event	A matching event is emitted on the event bus	event (event name)

Event triggers can optionally include a condition -- a natural-language string evaluated by Haiku against the event payload before dispatch. If the condition does not match, the automation is skipped.

How It Works

1. User asks the agent to create an automation (or uses the settings UI).
2. Agent calls manage-automations with action=list-events to discover available events.
3. Agent calls manage-automations with action=define to write a jobs/<name>.md resource.
4. The trigger dispatcher subscribes to the event on the bus.
5. When the event fires, the dispatcher loads all matching triggers, enforces owner and organization scope, and evaluates conditions via Haiku.
6. Event and cron acquisition converge on the shared background-automation runner, which validates identity, resolves the configured model and MCP allowlist, runs the agent loop, handles continuation and delivery, and records usage.
7. Status (lastRun, lastStatus, lastError) is written back to the resource frontmatter.

Trigger acquisition stays separate by design: the scheduler decides when a cron expression is due, while the event dispatcher matches event names, owners, and conditions. Everything after a trigger is accepted uses the same execution lifecycle.

Markdown Format

---
schedule: ""
enabled: true
triggerType: event
event: calendar.booking.created
condition: "attendee email ends with @example.com"
mode: agentic
domain: calendar
createdBy: user@example.com
runAs: creator
---

Send a Slack message to #sales with the booking details.
Use the web-request tool with ${keys.SLACK_WEBHOOK}.

Frontmatter Fields

Field	Type	Purpose
schedule	string	Cron expression; new scheduled automations default to once per hour (0 * * * *) when omitted
enabled	boolean	Whether the automation is active
triggerType	"schedule" | "event"	How the automation fires
event	string?	Event name to subscribe to (event triggers)
condition	string?	Natural-language condition evaluated before dispatch
mode	"agentic"	Full agent loop (only supported mode; "deterministic" was removed — never implemented, rejected at define time)
model	string?	Override the model for this trigger's agent loop
domain	string?	Grouping tag (mail, calendar, clips, etc.)
createdBy	string?	Creator email; required for organization event automations
orgId	string?	Organization scope
runAs	"creator" | "shared"	Execution identity; trigger-aware automations use creator
mcpTools	string[]?	Exact MCP tool allowlist for this automation
lastRun	string?	ISO timestamp of last execution
lastStatus	string?	success, error, running, or skipped
lastError	string?	Error message from last failed run

Agent Tools

All automation operations are accessed through a single manage-automations tool with an action parameter:

Action	Purpose
list-events	Discover all registered events with descriptions and payload schemas
list	List all automations with status, filter by domain or enabled
define	Create a new automation (name, trigger type, event, condition, body)
update	Update an existing automation (enabled, condition, body)
delete	Delete an automation (always confirm with user first)
fire-test	Emit a test.event.fired event to validate automations
run-now	Run one automation immediately with its real actions and side effects

Additional tool: web-request — outbound HTTP with ${keys.NAME} substitution.

manage-automations accepts personal or organization scope and supports model and mcpTools on define/update. An MCP allowlist is enforced, not advisory: every named tool must resolve in the creator's request context or the run fails clearly, and the runner never widens access beyond the configured names.

Organization Event Automations

Organization event automations are visible to organization members but always run as their creator:

• createdBy is required and runAs must be creator.
• An organization event automation matches only events emitted for that creator. Organization visibility does not turn an event into a broadcast.
• Organization admins may update or delete an automation, but cannot replace its creator or retarget its execution identity.
• Before every run, the framework verifies that the creator still exists and is still a member of the organization. A removed creator or unreadable membership state prevents execution.

The Event Bus

Integrations register events at module load time. The bus validates payloads against Standard Schema definitions and dispatches to subscribers.

import { registerEvent, emit } from "@agent-native/core/event-bus";
import { z } from "zod";

// Register an event type (typically in a server plugin)
registerEvent({
  name: "calendar.booking.created",
  description: "A new calendar booking was created",
  payloadSchema: z.object({
    bookingId: z.string(),
    attendeeEmail: z.string(),
    startTime: z.string(),
  }),
  example: { bookingId: "abc", attendeeEmail: "jane@co.com", startTime: "2025-01-15T10:00:00Z" },
});

// Emit the event (from an action, webhook handler, etc.)
emit("calendar.booking.created", {
  bookingId: "abc",
  attendeeEmail: "jane@co.com",
  startTime: "2025-01-15T10:00:00Z",
}, { owner: "user@example.com" });

Built-in Events

Event	Source
test.event.fired	Manual / manage-automations action=fire-test
agent.turn.completed	Agent chat
calendar.*	Calendar integration
clip.*	Clips integration
mail.*	Mail integration

Event Bus API

Function	Purpose
registerEvent	Declare an event type with schema
emit	Fire an event (validates payload)
subscribe	Listen for an event (returns subscription ID)
unsubscribe	Remove a subscription by ID
listEvents	List all registered event definitions

Condition Evaluator

When an automation has a condition, the dispatcher calls the configured fast/classification model to classify whether the event payload satisfies the condition. This is a yes/no classification, not a generation task. The exact model ID lives in condition-evaluator.ts.

• Empty or missing condition = unconditional (always fires).
• Results are memoized (SHA-256 of condition + payload) with a 5-minute TTL and 500-entry LRU cache.
• Payload is truncated to 4000 characters before sending to Haiku.
• On API failure, the condition evaluates to false (safe default -- skips the automation).

The web-request Tool and Keys

Automations use the web-request tool for outbound HTTP. It supports ${keys.NAME} placeholders in the URL, headers, and body. These are resolved server-side after the agent emits the tool call -- the raw secret value never enters the agent's context.

• Keys are ad-hoc secrets created by the user via the settings UI or the /_agent-native/secrets/adhoc API.
• Each key can have a URL allowlist that restricts which origins the key can be sent to.
• resolveKeyReferences() resolves placeholders, falling back from user scope to workspace scope.
• validateUrlAllowlist() checks the resolved URL against per-key allowlists (origin-level matching).
• Automation definitions, examples, event payloads, and prompts must not hardcode real API keys, webhook URLs, tokens, private Builder/internal data, or customer data. Use ${keys.NAME} and synthetic example.com identities.

UI

The full-page Agent surface's Automations tab is the primary management surface for scheduled and event-triggered automations. Users can view status, enable/disable, inspect, and delete automations there. Its URL remains /agent#jobs for compatibility even though the visible tab is Automations. Creation typically happens through the agent chat.

Example

User: "When someone books a meeting with a @example.com email, message me in Slack."

Agent flow:

1. Calls manage-automations with action=list-events to find calendar.booking.created.
2. Confirms the plan with the user.
3. Calls manage-automations with action=define:
   • name: slack-on-example-booking
   • trigger_type: event
   • event: calendar.booking.created
   • condition: attendee email ends with @example.com
   • mode: agentic
   • domain: calendar
   • body: Send a Slack message to #sales with the booking details. Use the web-request tool to POST to ${keys.SLACK_WEBHOOK}.

Key Files

File	Purpose
packages/core/src/triggers/types.ts	TriggerFrontmatter interface
packages/core/src/triggers/actions.ts	Agent tools (define, list, update, delete, test)
packages/core/src/triggers/dispatcher.ts	Event subscription and agentic dispatch
packages/core/src/jobs/background-automation-runner.ts	Shared schedule/event execution lifecycle
packages/core/src/triggers/condition-evaluator.ts	Haiku condition classification with caching
packages/core/src/event-bus/	Event bus (register, emit, subscribe)
packages/core/src/tools/fetch-tool.ts	web-request tool with key substitution
packages/core/src/secrets/substitution.ts	resolveKeyReferences() and validateUrlAllowlist()

Related Skills

• recurring-jobs -- schedule-triggered automations reuse the same scheduler
• secrets -- ad-hoc keys and ${keys.NAME} substitution
• actions -- automations can call any registered action via the agent loop
• delegate-to-agent -- agentic mode runs a full runAgentLoop