Triggers

Triggers define how workflows are invoked automatically.

Cron Triggers

Run workflows on a schedule:

name: daily-report
triggers:
  - cron:
      schedule: "0 9 * * *"
      timezone: America/New_York
steps:
  - id: generate
    llm:
      prompt: "Generate daily report"

Cron Schedule Format

* * * * *
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ └─ Day of week (0-6, Sunday=0)
│ │ │ └─── Month (1-12)
│ │ └───── Day of month (1-31)
│ └─────── Hour (0-23)
└───────── Minute (0-59)

Common Schedules

# Every day at 9 AM
schedule: "0 9 * * *"

# Every hour
schedule: "0 * * * *"

# Every Monday at 6 PM
schedule: "0 18 * * 1"

# First day of month at midnight
schedule: "0 0 1 * *"

# Every 15 minutes
schedule: "*/15 * * * *"

Webhook Triggers

Trigger workflows via HTTP POST:

name: github-webhook
triggers:
  - webhook:
      path: /github
      secret: ${WEBHOOK_SECRET}
steps:
  - id: process
    llm:
      prompt: "Process webhook: ${trigger.payload}"

Access webhook data with ${trigger.payload}.

Securing Webhooks

Validate requests with a secret:

triggers:
  - webhook:
      path: /secure
      secret: ${WEBHOOK_SECRET}
      validateSignature: true

Webhook URL

After deployment, the webhook is available at:

https://your-controller.example.com/webhooks/secure

Poll Triggers

Check for changes periodically:

name: check-rss
triggers:
  - poll:
      interval: 5m
      source:
        http:
          method: GET
          url: https://example.com/feed.xml
      condition: ${trigger.data != trigger.previous}
steps:
  - id: process
    llm:
      prompt: "New content: ${trigger.data}"

Poll Intervals

• 1m - Every minute
• 5m - Every 5 minutes
• 1h - Every hour
• 24h - Once per day

Multiple Triggers

Workflows can have multiple triggers:

triggers:
  - cron:
      schedule: "0 9 * * *"
  - webhook:
      path: /manual
steps:
  - id: run
    llm:
      prompt: "Execute task"

Trigger Context

Access trigger information in steps:

steps:
  - id: log
    llm:
      prompt: |
        Trigger type: ${trigger.type}
        Triggered at: ${trigger.timestamp}
        Data: ${trigger.payload}

Available fields:

• ${trigger.type} - cron, webhook, or poll
• ${trigger.timestamp} - When triggered
• ${trigger.payload} - Webhook request body
• ${trigger.data} - Poll source data

Running Triggered Workflows

With Controller

Deploy to a controller for automatic execution:

conductor controller start --workflows ./workflows/

The controller monitors triggers and executes workflows.

Manual Execution

Run triggered workflows manually:

conductor run workflow.yaml

Triggers are ignored when running manually.

Deployment

Deploy workflows with triggers:

# Deploy to exe.dev
conductor deploy workflow.yaml --target exe.dev

# Deploy to your server
scp workflow.yaml server:/opt/conductor/
ssh server "conductor controller start --workflows /opt/conductor/"