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Automations

Definitions

In simple words, automations describes what to do and when.
The what is described as a sequence of instructions, and the when is defined with triggers.

Example :

A HubspotDealsOnSlack automation might send a notification message on Slack every time a new Hubspot deal is created by sales teams.
Technically, the what would be a fetch instruction calling Slack API to send a message.
On the other side, the when would be an URL (i.e webhook) trigger that Hubspot will call everytime a new deal is opened.

Triggers

Inside the automation graph, the triggers can be configured with the very first block at the screen top.

URL

When an automation activates its URL trigger, it becomes publicly available through an URL which you can copy from your Workspace graph or source code. At this point, you might paste the URL inside whatever external service (i.e Hubspot) configuration with webhooks capabilities.

From inside the automation defining an URL triger, 4 variables give access to input HTTP requests :

  • body
  • headers
  • method
  • query

By default, these HTTP requests will receive the automation output as a response body.
However, an $http variable available inside the automation gives full control over the response status code or headers :

  - set:
      name: $http
      value:
        headers:
          foo: bar
        status: 400
  - set:
      name: $http
      value:
        headers:
          foo2: bar2 # More headers

This variable also allows writing SSE events in order to stream response chunks in real time :

  - set:
      name: $http
      value:
        chunk: # A custom data object that will be stringified & injected in SSE events
          foo2: bar2 
  - set:
      name: $http
      value:
        chunk: # Another chunk
          foo2: bar2

  • $http is only available in the URL triggered automation & not from children calls (unless explicitly passed as a parameter)
  • headers cannot be set after the first chunk set
  • When using SSE events (i.e with chunk), the automation output will also be sent as a last event
  • Sending SSE events automatically sets the following headers :
    Content-Type: "text/event-stream"
Cache-Control: "no-cache"
Connection: "keep-alive"

Events

An automation can also listen to a list of events.
Whenever such events are received, the automation is executed & can access event payload with payload variable, and event source (source IP, correlationId, userId, automation, ...) with source variable.

These events can be :

Schedules

An automation can be regularly triggered, based on a list of cron schedules.
An automation can be schedule at most every 15 minutes.

Here is a valid example of schedule : 

when:
  schedules:
    - '* * * * *'
As stated before, this example will be triggered every 15 minutes even if it describes a cron that should be executed "at every minute".

Whenever an automation is successfully planned a runtime.automations.scheduled event is emitted within the workspace, you can observe it on the workspace's Activity Feed.

The automation will be scheduled "on the hour", that means if you schedule it to repeat every 20 minutes at 3:14, the job will first run at 3:20, then 3:40, and so on.

Also, when you schedule your automation keep in mind that it will be executed based on the UTC timezone.
The following schedule : 0 5 * * * means it will be run every day at 5:00 UTC.

If you need help creating your cron, here is a little tool that can help writing one.

Here is a video walkthrough about scheduling:

🕑 Schedule an automation · Prisme.ai - 3 February 2023 - Watch Video

Supported native events

Workspaces can only listen to a limited subset of the available native events :


Event name Description Payload fields
workspaces.configured Workspace config has been updated 
{
  "config": Config object from workspace.config
}
workspaces.apps.configured Some AppInstance config has been updated 
{
  "appInstance": AppInstance object from workspace.imports,
  "slug": AppInstance slug
}
workspaces.apps.installed Some AppInstance has been installed 
{
  "appInstance": AppInstance object from workspace.imports,
  "slug": AppInstance slug
}
workspaces.apps.uninstalled Some AppInstance has been uninstalled 
{
  "appInstance": AppInstance object from workspace.imports,
  "slug": AppInstance slug
}
workspaces.deleted Workspace deleted 
{
  "workspaceId": workspace id
}
apps.published Workspace published as an app 
{
  "app": App object
}
apps.deleted Workspace app unpublished 
{
  "appSlug": Unpublished app slug
}
runtime.fetch.failed A fetch received a 4xx or 5xx HTTP status 
{
  "request": fetchInstructionBody,
  "response": {
    "status": 500,
    "body": {...},
    "headers": {...}
  }
}
runtime.webhooks.triggered A webhook has been called 
{
  "request": fetchInstructionBody,
  "response": {
    workspaceId: "workspace id",
    automationSlug: "webhook slug",
    method: "httm method"
  }
}
runtime.schedules.triggered A schedule has been triggered 
{
    workspaceId: "workspace id",
    automationSlug: "automation slug",
    schedule: "*/15 * * * *"
}
runtime.automations.scheduled An automation has been succesfully scheduled following its schedules 
{
    slug: "automation slug",
    schedules: [
      "*/15 * * * *"
    ]
}
workspaces.pages.permissions.shared Some page has been shared with someone 
  {
  "subjectId": "<pageId>",
  "permissions": {
      "email": "<user email>",
      "policies": {
        "read": true
      },
      "id": "<user id>"
    }
  }
workspaces.pages.permissions.deleted Someone's access to the page has been removed 
  {
    "subjectId": "<pageId>",
    "userId": "<user id>",
    "email": "<user email>"
  }
workspaces.versions.published A new workspace version has been committed 
  {
    "version": {
      "name": "version name",
      "createdAt": "iso date",
      "description": "version description"
    }
  }
workspaces.versions.rollback A previous version has been rolled-back 
  {
    "version": {
      "name": "version name",
      "createdAt": "iso date",
      "description": "version description"
    }
  }

All of these events and object types indicated by Payload fields column are fully described inside the Schemas section at the bottom of our API Swagger.

Instructions

Once triggered, the automation will execute every defined instruction one after another, as configured from your automation graph.
Native instructions like set, conditions or repeat help structuring the execution flow and leveraging persistent contexts, while fetch and emit provide 2 ways of communicating with external services.
fetch instruction sends an HTTP request and wait for its response before moving forward, and emit sends an event without expecting any response.

Finally, automations can also directly call each others and retrieve their respective output.

More details on available instructions

Arguments

When calling a native instruction or another automation, differents arguments can be transmitted :

image

And there is the corresponding source code : 

- set:
    name: slotFilling
    value:
      field: '{{field}}'
      question: '{{question}}'

However, these graphical inputs are not reserved to native instructions, but can also be configured for your own custom automations. This is achieved by specifying the name of the expected arguments, alongside their expected type.

For now, specifying these expected arguments must be done from the arguments field inside the automation source code, which follows JSON Schema standard.

Here is the source code for an automation leveraging every supported graphical input :

  testArguments:
    name: testArguments
    arguments:
      someString:
        type: string
      someNumber:
        type: number
      someObject:
        type: object
        properties:
          someStringField:
            type: string
      someOtherObject:
        type: object
        properties:
          nestedObject:
            type: object
            properties:
              someField:
                type: number
      someStringArray:
        type: array
        items:
          type: string
      someObjectArray:
        type: array
        items:
          type: object
          properties:
            fieldA:
              type: string
      someRawJSON:
        type: object
        additionalProperties: true          
      someToken:
        type: string        
        secret: true
    do:
      ...

When calling this automation, this form will show up :
image

... producing the following source code :

    - testArguments:
        someString: Hello world
        someNumber: '24'
        someObject:
          someStringField: My object field
        someOtherObject:
          nestedObject:
            someField: '1'
        someStringArray:
          - This is the first value of my array argument
        someObjectArray:
          - fieldA: foo
        someRawJSON:
          custom: JSON

The last someToken argument defined with secret: true does not differ visually, but is automatically redacted from native runtime events (i.e runtime.automations.executed, runtime.contexts.updated, ...). This avoids accidental leaks of sensitive information through native Prisme.ai events.

Output

Native instructions & automations can return some data that will be :

  • Answered to the calling URL trigger
  • Transferred to the calling automation, if any

Inside the automation graph, the output can be configured with the latest block at the screen bottom.

Variables

Inside your automation instructions, dynamic data can be injected by surrounding a variable name with double braces : {{some.variable.name}}. Here, the double braces indicate that this word will be replaced with the corresponding variable value.

As soon as your automation is created, a few variables is natively provided and ready to use (see contexts), but more variables can be created/removed using set and delete instructions.

image

In case of objects or array variables, it is even possible to access a specific sub key using another variable, like this :

{{session.myObjectVariable[{{item.field}}]}}

If session.myObjectVariable equals to {"mickey": "house"} and item.field equals to mickey, the entire expression will resolve to house.

Contexts

Contexts are special variables maintained accross executions in order to provide a persistent memory.

6 contexts are available :

  • global : this context is shared by all authenticated users for the same workspace.
  • user : this context holds user-specific data and spans accross sessions
  • session : this context holds session-specific data. It is automatically removed when the user session expires, as defined by Gateway API. In case of a manually set session, it expires 1 hour after the last set (configurable with CONTEXT_UNAUTHENTICATED_SESSION_EXPIRE_TIME env var)
  • run : this context holds some technical information about current run, and is automatically removed 60 seconds after the last automation run (configurable with CONTEXT_RUN_EXPIRE_TIME env var)
  • socket : If user is connected through an events websocket, this context holds a temporary state local to this websocket, useful to separate state between multiple browser tabs for example. This context automatically expires after 6h without any set
  • config : this context holds current workspace or AppInstance config
  • $workspace : this read-only context holds current workspace definition, allowing to read any of its sections like installed apps config (i.e $workspace.imports.myApp.config)

Except for $workspace, all of these contexts might be written to using set instruction, in which case written data would be persisted and made available in subsequent requests. The only exception is when setting variables inside session/user contexts from an unauthenticated webhook, user and session will not be persisted.

However, sessions can be manually created or switched by setting the session.id field ; user and session contexts are then automatically reloaded with values from the targeted user contexts (or initialized, if the sessionId does not exist).
This allows unauthenticated webhooks to retrieve persisted user / sessions contexts identified by custom webhook fields (i.e a facebook userId, ...).

Any set variable to one of these contexts is automatically synchronized with parents or child automations triggered for the same run (i.e correlationId), making the freshly set variable visible in these parallel automations.

Detailed contexts

Global


Variable name Description
global.workspaceId Current workspaceId
global.workspaceName Current workspace name
global.apiUrl Current API instance public url (fulfilled by runtime **API_URL** variable)
global.endpoints Map of available endpoint slugs to the corresponding public url
global.studioUrl Current studio instance public url (fulfilled by runtime **STUDIO_URL** variable)
global.pagesUrl Current workspace pages public url (built from workspace slug and runtime **PAGES_HOST** variable)
global.pagesHost Current pages instance base domain (fulfilled by runtime **PAGES_HOST** variable)
global.workspacesRegistry Map public workspaces' slug to their id & name

User


Variable name Description
user.id Current user id
user.email If available, current user email
user.authData Detailed authentication data from various auth providers this user logged in with
user.role If any, current user role

Session


Variable name Description
session.id Current session id

If current user has been authenticated through the Gateway API (whether anonymously or not), the session context expiration depends on the value configured in the Gateway API (1 month by default).
If current user comes from an unauthenticated endpoint call, its session context will expire after 1 hour, configurable from CONTEXT_UNAUTHENTICATED_SESSION_EXPIRE_TIME environment variable.

Run


Variable name Description
run.depth Current automation depth in the stacktrace
run.correlationId Current run correlationId
run.socketId Current socket id, if connected by websocket
run.appSlug If running from an appInstance, current app slug
run.appInstanceSlug If running from an appInstance, current appInstance slug
run.parentAppSlug If parent is also an appInstance, parent app slug
run.date Current ISO8601 date
run.trigger.type Trigger type of the current automation run (event, endpoint, automation)
run.trigger.value Trigger value of the current automation run (event/endpoint/ automation name)
run.automationSlug Current automation slug
run.ip Source event or HTTP request IP