Automations
Automations let you define rules that run automatically, on a schedule, at a specific time, or in response to an event. Each automation executes as a full Dex session with access to all your connected apps.
What Are Automations
An automation is a natural-language action paired with a trigger. When the trigger fires, Dex creates a new session, gathers context ( memories, integration data), and executes the action, just like you asked it in chat.
No workflow builders or templates. Just describe what you want in plain English and set when it should run. You can view and manage all your automations from the dashboard.
Trigger Types
- Cron (recurring schedule): runs on a repeating schedule using cron expressions. Example: every weekday at 9am, every Monday at noon.
- Datetime (one-shot): runs once at a specific date and time, then auto-deactivates.
- Event (integration triggers): fires when something happens in a app. Currently supported events:
- Gmail: new email received, new email sent
- Google Calendar: upcoming event alert, event ended, new or updated event
Conditions
Automations can have an optional condition, a natural-language filter that must be true for the action to execute. For event-triggered automations, an AI classifier evaluates each event against the condition before proceeding.
Example: trigger on "new email received" with condition "only if the email is from a customer asking about pricing."
Examples
- "Summarize my unread emails every morning at 8am": cron trigger, runs daily.
- "When I receive an email from a recruiter, draft a polite decline": event trigger on new Gmail, with condition.
- "Send a weekly status update to #team-updates on Slack every Friday at 5pm": cron trigger, cross-app action.
- "Remind me about the board meeting on April 15 at 9am": datetime trigger, one-shot.