Automations

An automation is a trigger plus an ordered set of steps. When something happens — a contact subscribes, or you fire a named event — Deckle enrolls the contact and walks them forward through the flow: sending email, waiting, branching, and updating their record along the way.

What is an automation#

Each automation has a single trigger and a list of steps that form a forward flow (a DAG — steps always point onward, never back). A contact enters at the trigger and moves from one step to the next until the flow ends or a branch sends them down a different path.

Steps run in order. A delay or wait step parks the contact until its time or event arrives, then the flow resumes exactly where it left off. Every enrolled contact keeps its own position, so thousands of people can be at different points in the same automation at once.

Triggers#

A trigger decides who enters the automation and when. There are two kinds.

For an event trigger, name the event the automation should listen for. Any event you send with that name enrolls the matching contact. The same event stream can also wake a wait step mid-flow — see below.

Step types#

Steps are the building blocks of the flow. Each step has a type that determines what it does and where the contact goes next.

Build it visually#

Most automations start in the dashboard. Open Automations in the top nav to design a flow on a canvas — no code required.

Via the API#

You can also define an automation programmatically. Pass a trigger and an ordered array of steps to automations.create. The example below sends a welcome email, waits three days, branches on whether the contact has opened, and tags them accordingly.

import { Deckle } from "@deckle/sdk";

const deckle = new Deckle(process.env.DECKLE_API_KEY!);

const automation = await deckle.automations.create({
  name: "Welcome series",
  trigger: { type: "contact.subscribed" },
  steps: [
    {
      id: "welcome",
      type: "email",
      template: "tmpl_welcome",
      subjectOverride: "Welcome to Acme 👋",
    },
    { id: "wait_3d", type: "delay", delayMinutes: 4320 },
    {
      id: "check_opened",
      type: "condition",
      field: "opened",
      op: "eq",
      value: true,
      nextTrue: "tag_engaged",
      nextFalse: "nudge",
    },
    { id: "tag_engaged", type: "action", action: "add-tag", value: "engaged" },
    { id: "nudge", type: "email", template: "tmpl_nudge" },
  ],
});

A new automation is created as a draft. Manage it with automations.list, automations.get, automations.update, and automations.delete, or see the full API reference.

Going live#

An automation is either draft or live. Draft flows are editable but inert — no one is enrolled and no steps run. Setting the status to live starts enrolling matching contacts.

• Draft — the build state. Change the trigger and steps freely; nothing fires.
• Live — the automation enrolls contacts and, on going live, resumes any enrollments that were paused while it was a draft, so contacts pick up where they left off.

Next steps#