Feature Request - Split Automations into Triggers and Actions

Contribute Feature
1

Hey!

I often find myself wanting to use Automation, but feeling limited by how they currently work. I often find one script has something I need, while I need that part to work within the context of another script.

It seems this is largely related to the way Automations currently work and are set up. I’d love to see things split into Triggers and Actions.

  • Example triggers:
    • When a topic is created/updated
    • When a post is created/updated
    • When a site setting changes
    • When a topic is closed
    • When a user earns a badge
    • etc.
  • Example actions:
    • Make a banner topic
    • Close a topic
    • Reply to a topic
    • Create a topic
    • Tag a topic
    • Run LLM call
    • Send a Slack message
    • etc.

This setup would allow for a few things:

  • Multiple actions to be assigned following a trigger (e.g. When topic is created> Run LLM Call> Tag post> Reply to the topic)
  • Allow for trigger payload data (and subsequent data made available from actions - e.g. LLM call response) to be used dynamically within actions

Ultimately, I feel Automation has a lot of potential, but each Script is siloed in a way that makes it very hard to customize to individual needs. Each currently assumes that the actions available will work for everyone.

3 Likes
Improving the experience in our support categories
2

I started toying with this idea with my personal assistant Jarvis:

What do you think? It even has an interactive demo.

I do find this Trigger → Filter → Action → Action chain very appealing. Makes automation far more flexible and clear.

2 Likes
3

I like this proposal a lot! It seems to solve most (if not all) of the pain points automations currently have.

It also feels much more scalable for new Triggers and Actions. I imagine this opening the doors for easily adding additional triggers - like theme_created or theme_updated - without having to worry about how they interact with pre-existing scripts. New triggers would instantly gain access to every existing action (Slack notifications, PMs, LLM calls, etc.). The same applies to creating additional actions like assign_badge, add_to_group, add_to_logs_and_screening and so on.

Ohhhh, and “Dry run” and “Execution logs” are also spot on - having that level of observability into how things actually run is a total life saver.

1 Like