Triggers let an Agent run on its own, without you opening it and starting it each time. Set a trigger once, and the Agent runs whenever the conditions you define are met — on a schedule, or in response to something happening in your account.
For example, you could set an Agent to run on a schedule — say, every Friday afternoon — or in response to an action, like whenever a task is created on a specific project.
👉 New to Agents? Start with AI Agents: Overview and Setting Up and Managing AI Agents.
📌 If you have built an Automation in Productive, this will feel familiar. A trigger is put together the same way — a When step that starts it, an optional Check if step, and a Then step — where the Then action is to start your Agent.
📌 To tell the trigger builder from the Automations builder, check the top-left: it shows the Agent's name rather than "Settings: Automations."
Where to set up triggers
Open the Agent's Info tab. Under Triggers, click + Trigger.
Choose a trigger type, then click Continue:
A user makes an action — the Agent runs when someone creates, updates, deletes, or comments on an object, such as a task, deal, budget, or invoice.
At a specific time — the Agent runs on a recurring schedule.
A user makes an action (event-based trigger)
Choose the item type the trigger watches — for example, a task, deal, budget, or invoice.
📌 The event-based triggers available depend on the Agent's permissions — which are inherited from its manager by default. See Setting Up and Managing AI Agents for how agent permissions and access work.
You can now choose from a variety of triggers for different item types. The table below shows which triggers are available for each item type:
📌 Form is an item type that can only be triggered when a response to that specific form is submitted. Learn more in How to Use Automations and Forms?
When the item type is a task, you can also choose where the trigger runs — on all current and future projects, or only the projects you select.
A task-based trigger only runs on projects the Agent can access: if you select a project the Agent is not a member of, Productive warns you, and the trigger will not run there until the Agent is added to that project.
Tip:
You can select multiple "When" options of the same Type by ticking several boxes. This allows you to create broader rules.
Example:
"Any time a task within a specified project is created, updated, or commented on, then...."
At a specific time (time-based trigger)
Choose a frequency and time:
Daily: Run the automation every day at a specific time.
Weekly: Select the specific day(s) of the week and time.
Monthly: Choose between:
A specific calendar day (e.g., "every first or last day of the month").
A specific weekday (e.g., "every last Friday").
Specify the time for the rule to run.
Add conditions with a "Check if" step (optional)
To narrow when the Agent runs, add a Check if step: click + between the When and Then steps and select Check if. Conditions are built from condition sets using attributes and comparators — for example, only run when a task's assignee is a specific person.
📌 The "Check if" step is only available for event-based triggers.
Set what the Agent does (the "Then" step)
The Then step is set to Start Agent. By default, the Agent runs on its general instructions.
Turn on Use custom instructions to give this trigger its own prompt. These custom trigger instructions take priority over the Agent's general instructions whenever this trigger runs.
This lets one Agent take on a different focus per trigger — for example, a "write the weekly digest" prompt on a Friday schedule, and a "review this task and comment" prompt on a per-task trigger.
Monitor and run triggers
To see what an Agent did during a trigger run, open the three-dot menu next to the trigger and select Show Runs.
Expand any run and click Show Details next to Start agent action to open a read-only view of that run — showing the trigger instruction and the Agent's response for that specific execution.
To run it manually, select Run now.
