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A trigger starts work when something happens elsewhere: a failed payment, a new GitHub issue, an email to your support address. Each time, a new thread starts for the teammate you chose, with the event as its first message. For work at set times, use a routine instead.

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Events you can use

Options left empty match everything. With Gmail, a reply in an email conversation that already has a thread continues that thread rather than starting a new one. The Email App’s rules are set up with its addresses: see Email.

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Create a trigger

Owners and admins create triggers.
  1. Open Settings → Apps and the App.
  2. In an account’s menu, choose Triggers, then Add a trigger.
  3. Fill in:
    • When: the event, and its options.
    • Starts a thread for: the teammate.
    • In project: the project its threads belong to, if any.
    • Instructions (optional): what the teammate does with each event, such as “Find the cause and open a pull request if the fix is small.”
    • Name: how the trigger is listed, and the start of each thread’s title.
  4. Choose Create trigger.
The trigger’s threads run on the accounts of the admin who set it up. You can move a trigger to another project or delete it from the same panel.
An event can contain anything its sender writes, including instructions aimed at your teammate. Give the teammate only the access it needs, or set it to Ask a person first for writes. See Apps.

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Custom apps and webhooks

For a service Brigade doesn’t integrate (Sentry, a form, your own backend), add a Custom app from the catalog in Settings → Apps. In its menu, choose Webhooks, then Add a webhook: pick the teammate, project, instructions and name, and how to Verify the sender with:
  • A signing secret Brigade generates, for a sender that can sign its requests.
  • Nothing (the URL alone), for one that can’t. Anyone with the URL can then start a thread.
Choose Create webhook. Brigade shows the URL and, if you chose one, the signing secret. The secret is shown once: copy it now. Your sender then posts each event to the URL:
  • The signature is the HMAC-SHA256 of the raw body, keyed with the secret, in hex, after sha256=. A request with a missing or wrong signature is refused.
  • Send JSON when you can. Any other body is passed on as text. Bodies are limited to 1 MB.
  • Senders retry. Put an id field in the JSON body (or an X-Request-Id header) so a retried event doesn’t start a second thread. Without one, the same body within 5 minutes counts as one event.
Custom apps only receive events. Teammates can’t call them back through Brigade.

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What the thread receives

Each event starts a thread titled with the trigger’s name and the event, such as “Failed payments: Payment failed: $49.00”. Its first message has:
  1. Your instructions, under “Instructions for each event of this trigger”, if the trigger has any.
  2. A short summary of the event, for built-in Apps.
  3. The raw event, marked as untrusted input. Files attached to an email come with it.
The thread then runs like any other, with the teammate’s access, approval policy, limits and memory. If a thread can’t start, for example because the computer is offline, the event is offered again later, and the member who set up the trigger gets a ticket under Needs you. Only one is open per trigger at a time.

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Ask a teammate in a thread

You can also ask in a thread: “every time a payment fails, look up the customer and draft an email”. The teammate picks the App account and event, or a new custom app for any service that can send a webhook, and writes the instructions.
  • An owner or admin approves each one. A trigger lets an outside event start work on someone’s accounts, so the teammate’s request opens an approval in the thread and under Needs you, for owners and admins only. They choose Add the trigger or Decline. A member who isn’t an admin can’t approve it in their own thread.
  • Once approved, its threads run on the accounts of the member who asked, in that thread’s project. A new custom app is added, and the teammate gets the URL in the same turn so it can set up the sender itself.
  • The signing secret is never written in the thread. It is saved in Settings → Secrets for that teammate’s use only.
The teammate offers only the accounts shared with the workspace and those of the person it works for: never another member’s own account, even one they gave it. A trigger’s threads run on the accounts of the member who started the thread, so in a thread several people write in, it sets up none and lists no one’s triggers: ask it in a thread of your own. Teammates set up triggers only in threads a member started, never in a thread a trigger, a schedule or a playbook started.