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Triggers

Workflows declare triggers through the on field; a triggered workflow is started by the engine or by a caller. A trigger only declares the start surface of the workflow — it never runs inside a process.

Trigger Types (kind)

kindDescriptionHow it fires
manualManual triggerexecutor.evt().start("model-id:trigger-id", &payload).await — returns the process id
chatChat triggerSame entry, a string message becomes the start input (params variable)
hookHook triggerSame entry, blocks until the workflow completes and returns its outputs
scheduleSchedule triggerFired by the engine timer on a cron expression; cannot be started manually
 
id: m1
name: test
on:
  - id: event_manual
    kind: manual
    name: start by manual
    # default start inputs used when the caller passes no payload
    params:
      value: 0

  - id: event_hook
    kind: hook

  - id: event_chat
    kind: chat

  # cron expression of 6 fields: sec min hour day month dow
  - id: event_schedule
    kind: schedule
    schedule: "0 * * * * *"
    params:
      value: 0
  • manual/chat/hook fire through executor.evt().start("model-id:trigger-id", &payload).await; a null payload falls back to the declared params.
  • manual triggers double as web URL triggers — an HTTP transport (e.g. acts-plugin-web’s POST /hooks/{model-id}:{trigger-id}) starts them with the request body as payload, so no separate webhook kind is needed.
  • schedule triggers keep their run state (last_run/next_run) on the deployed trigger row and are polled by the engine timer. Re-deploying a model reconciles the trigger data — changed declarations are updated and removed triggers are cleaned up.
  • kind may also be any registered event package id (custom triggers), fired through the package registry.