Trigger Assemblies
Mechanisms that execute automation actions when criteria are met, including polling, webhooks, scheduled time-based triggers, gated threshold triggers, protocol connections, and bulk export options.
Trigger assemblies cause the actions in an automation to be executed when their criteria is met.
Typically triggers will fire upon new or updated data.
AI can now build these assemblies for you via Claude Code + the APIANT plugin. See Get started.
The main categories of triggers are:
- Polling triggers that periodically check an API for new or updated data, for example every 15 minutes.
- Date/Time triggers that fire at a certain date and time, or on a periodic time schedule like once an hour.
- Gated triggers that fire only once each time a threshold criteria is met, like a weather trigger that fires when a temperature goes below a certain value.
- Webhook triggers that receive new or updated data pushed from an external system. These are also called Instant Triggers.
- Protocol thread triggers that maintain an always-on connection for sending and receiving data by running in threads on the server. Generally a SDK is used that under the hood will maintain a socket connection and communicate with a protocol over the socket. An example is the XMPP protocol for Jabber. Another example is a message queue listener. Protocol triggers are also Instant Triggers.
- Export triggers used for one-time bulk exports of data, typically for loading into another system.
In this section
Date/Time Triggers
Schedule automation workflows to execute at specific dates and times or on recurring intervals such as hourly, daily, or weekly schedules.
Export Triggers
Export triggers enable one-time bulk data exports from external systems by fetching all API data via pagination. Export automations run only in manual export mode without recurring schedules.
Gated Triggers
Gated triggers fire once when threshold criteria are met, then reset only after the condition reverses. Configure thresholds and conditions using the Trigger (Gated) module.
Polling Triggers
Polling triggers periodically check an API for new or updated data at configurable intervals. They should only be used when webhooks are unavailable, as they consume more resources and may miss data.
Protocol Thread Triggers
Server-side always-running threads that maintain persistent connections using SDKs, with two variations: Unary threads handling all data for an app, and Per-Trigger threads with one thread per active automation.
Webhook Triggers
Webhook triggers enable automations to execute immediately when third-party systems push data via webhook URLs, supporting both manually configured and API-registered webhook variations.