How automations run

An automation is a saved brief: instructions plus the plugins it may use. It does nothing on its own. A trigger starts it, and each start is an execution that creates or continues a session.

  Triggers               Automation             Each start
  ──────────────         ───────────────────    ───────────────────────
  schedule      ┐        the saved brief:       Execution
  github_event  ├──────▶ instructions and  ───▶ (one occurrence)
  webhook       │        the plugins it                │
  manual        ┘        may use                       ▼
                                                a new session, or
                                                continue an existing one
                                                       │
                                                       ▼
                                                runs exactly like a
                                                session you started
                                                by hand

The four words

An automation can hold more than one trigger, so the same brief can run nightly and also on a matching GitHub event.

Once it starts

An execution produces an ordinary session. It acquires a sandbox, boots a runtime, and streams work the same way a task you typed does, so everything in How a session starts and How a session runs applies unchanged.

The difference is only in what began it, and in the fact that the brief and its allowed plugins were decided ahead of time rather than typed into a composer.

Manage automations from the workspace, or through the /v3/organizations/{orgId}/automations resource and its triggers sub-resource. Those routes need the automations:read and automations:write scopes.