Automations

An automation rule does the small step that always follows the same event: a card reaches Done and its finish date is stamped; a bug comes in and it is labelled and handed to whoever is on triage; every weekday at 9:00 the overdue cards are flagged; a card ships and the team's Slack channel hears about it. Each rule has a trigger (what starts it), conditions (what the card must be) and actions (what it does).

Open Automations

Press Automations in the footer, between Search and Settings. It is there for an Editor of the whole plan, on a plan saved to your account. A badge beside it counts the rules that are on; it turns amber (or, with none on, a small amber dot shows) when a rule has paused itself (below).

The screen has three tabs:

Rules: every rule in the plan, each with its switch, its name, what it does in a sentence ("When Card Moved to Done then Set Completed On"), when it Last Run and how many runs it made This Week. A rule on a time also says when it runs next ("Next: Mon 9:00"). Find one by name, or narrow the list by trigger or by On and Off. A row's ⋯ menu holds Edit, Duplicate, Audit Trail and Delete.
Audit Trail: what each rule did, newest first, kept for 30 days or the last 2,000 runs (and, apart from them, the last 500 No Match runs, when a rule's conditions didn't hold). Open a run to see its steps: who did what, each condition and what it found, and each action, with Open Card. A For Related Cards step says how many cards it ran on, each card's own steps beneath it, headed by its number.
Templates: ready-made rules (below).

At the right of the tabs, Runs today shows how many of the plan's 1,000 runs a day have been used. A No Match costs nothing, and Last Run and This Week leave No Matches out too.

Start From a Template

The Templates tab, and the empty Rules list, show ready-made rules: Stamp the Finish Date, Assign on Start, Overdue Nudge, Share Out Form Responses, Post Shipped Work to Slack, Triage New Bugs, Unblock the Next Card, Due Soon Reminder, Clean Up Done, Escalate Urgent Work, Reopen on New Comment, Route Reviews, Give It a Due Date, Flag Blocked Cards, Verify the Fix, Back to the Backlog, Close the Parent, Tell Them It’s Unblocked, Nudge Stuck Cards, Done When Feedback Is Resolved, two that use AI: Sort Incoming Cards and Summarise Form Requests, and six for GitHub pull requests (Connect GitHub). The chips above them (Status, Assigning, Due Dates, Forms, Telling People, AI, and GitHub where it is set up) narrow the list. Hover a template to watch it at work on a small board.

Pick one and it opens in the builder, filled in from your plan: its done columns, its In Progress and Review columns, a date field named like Completed On, a Bug card type. Whatever your plan doesn't have, or the rule leaves to you (a label, the people in turn, a Slack channel), is marked on its step ("Pick a label", "Pick a webhook") until you pick it. Nothing is saved, and the rule stays off, until you press Save Rule. New Rule offers Start From a Template too.

Describe a Rule

Press New Rule, then Describe a Rule (or Describe a Rule under an empty Rules list), and say in your own words when the rule should run and what it should do: "When a card moves to Done, set Completed On to today and remove the blocked label". The examples under the box fill it in for you. Press Draft Rule, or Ctrl or ⌘ Enter.

A few seconds later the rule opens in the builder, filled in from your plan, with Drafted by AI above its steps. It is not saved and it is off: check each step, try it with Test on a Card, then press Save Rule. Anything your plan doesn't have (a person it can't find, say) is marked on its step, and a Slack, Teams or webhook post waits for you to pick the webhook. If the request isn't a rule for this plan, or no rule could be made from it, the dialog says so and keeps your words to change.

Describing a rule uses AI: each ask counts toward the plan's 100 AI steps a day (a draft that needs a second try asks twice), and a plan drafts up to 20 rules a day. Only your words and the names of your plan's columns, card types, fields and labels are sent, never a person, a card's text or a webhook. Whatever it answers, nothing is saved or turned on until you save the rule.

Make a Rule

Press New Rule, then Blank Rule. The rule reads from top to bottom:

When: the trigger. Pick one of Card Created (an undo that puts back a deleted card is not a new card, so it doesn't count), Form Response (a card made by one of the plan's forms), Card Moved (from and to the columns you choose), Field Changed (any of the fields you choose; Time Spent, votes, Comments fields and worked-out fields are left out, as no edit changes them), Card Archived, Card Restored, Checklist Completed (the last item is ticked), Column Over Limit (a column holds more cards than the limit you set; several cards dropped in at once start it once, on the card that went past the limit), Comment Added, All Threads Resolved (the card's last open thread is resolved), Someone Mentioned (anyone, or the people you pick), Card Unblocked (the last card blocking it is done or archived), Related Cards Done (all its children, or all the cards its Card fields point at, are done), or Run from a Card (you start it from a card's ⋯ menu). Or pick a time, or a pull request on GitHub (both below). Change opens Pick a Trigger, a gallery of every trigger in groups, each with a picture of what it hears.
If all of these: the conditions, all of which must hold. Check the Card Type, the Column, a Field (is, is not, is empty, contains, before or after a day, and more), Who Did It (a person, an Editor, a Participant, an agent), or whether it Matches a Saved Filter of one of your boards.
Then: the actions, in order. Move to Column, Set Field, Clear Field, Assign, Add Label or Remove Label, Add Comment, Flag or Unflag, Archive or Restore From Archive, Change Card Type, Set Colour, Create Card or Copy Card, Add a Checklist, Link Cards, Send Email, Mention Someone, Resolve Threads and Wait, and Send to Webhook, Post to Slack and Post to Microsoft Teams (below). + Add Action opens a picker of them by group; on a step's panel, Change opens it again to swap the action.
Wait holds the rest of the rule for 1 hour to 30 days. When the time is up the rule checks its conditions again, and if they still hold, the steps after the Wait run. The run shows as Waiting in the Audit Trail until then, with when it goes on. Turning the rule off (or its pausing itself), editing or deleting it, or deleting the card, stops the runs waiting on it, and turning it back on doesn't bring them back. A run whose time comes once the plan has used its runs for the day is skipped.
Set Field sets a value you type, a value from the card, or a day (Today, or so many days before or after). A field of fixed values picks one of them: a Priority or Choice field one of its values, the Assignee or a Person field one of the plan's people, a Checkbox Yes or No. Time Spent, votes, Comments fields and worked-out fields are never set or cleared by a rule, so they aren't offered; Flagged and the Checklist have their own actions (Flag, Unflag, Add a Checklist).
Send Email and Mention Someone email only the people your own notifications reach: the plan's owner and the people of its team. Someone who has left the team, or who came in through a share link, gets no email from a rule, though the step still counts as done (and a mention's thread is still written).
Send Email can also go to Email Addresses you type in, up to 10, for people outside the plan. Press Enter or a comma after each, or paste a list; one that isn't an address shows in red until you remove it. Each email says which plan and rule sent it and carries a link to unsubscribe: an address that unsubscribes gets no more email from this plan's rules, and the Audit Trail says so. A plan sends at most 50 of these emails a day; past that the run is Skipped and says how many went. Only an Editor signed in can add addresses.

Press + Add Action, + Add Condition, + If / Else or + For Related Cards to add a step. An If / Else runs one list of actions when its conditions hold and another when they don't. Click any step to change it in the panel on the right; its ⋯ menu moves it up or down, duplicates it or deletes it. Name the rule at the top, then press Save Rule.

Rules on a Time

Four triggers start a rule at a time instead of when something happens to a card:

Scheduled: every Day, Weekday, Week (on the days you pick) or Month (on a day from the 1st to the 31st; past the month's end, its last day), At a time on the quarter hour.
Due In: 1 to 30 days before a card is due, at a time. A card is reminded once for each due date it has.
Overdue: on the day after a card was due, at a time. A card is reminded once for each due date it has, and a Done card is never overdue.
Card Stuck: once a day at a time, cards that have not changed for 1 to 90 days, outside Done columns (only in the columns you pick, if you pick any). Any change to a card starts its count again.

At its time, the rule runs once for each card its conditions match: "Every Weekday at 9:00 for cards Overdue, not Done". A rule on a time with no conditions runs on every card in the plan, and the builder warns you. Times are in your time zone when you save the rule, which the trigger's panel names ("Times are Europe/London"). A rule on a time has nobody behind it, so it can't check Who Did It or assign or email whoever triggered it.

Assign in Turn

Assign gives the card to a person, to whoever triggered the rule, to nobody, or to People in Turn: 2 to 10 people, in the order you pick them. Each run assigns the next one, then starts again from the first. Two runs at the same moment take the next two people, never the same one twice.

A For Related Cards step runs its own steps on each of the card's related cards: its Linked Cards (through one Card field, or any), the cards it is Blocked By, the Cards It Blocks, its Child Cards, or the Cards Matching a Saved Filter of one of your boards. It shows as a card, "For each Blocked By Card", with its own conditions and up to 10 actions beneath it, each added with its own + Add Condition and + Add Action. It runs on up to 100 related cards. Inside it, the card values are the related card's, and Trigger Title, Trigger Number and Trigger Link are the card that started the rule.

Post to Slack, Teams or a Webhook

Post to Slack, Post to Microsoft Teams and Send to Webhook send a message through one of the plan's webhooks. Pick the webhook by name, or press Add a Webhook… to make one; then write the message, with values and a Preview. Picking a webhook needs you signed in, since webhooks belong to an account. A rule holds up to 5 of these steps. Test on a Card sends nothing and shows the message it would post.

AI Actions

Under AI in + Add Action are three steps that read the card and decide for you:

Summarise Card writes a short summary (at most 600 characters, plain text) of the card's title, description, checklist, latest comments and its own text and choice fields, as a comment or into one of your Text fields.
Suggest Card Type picks the card type that fits best, from this plan's types only, and either sets it or comments the suggestion.
Triage sets the priority (Urgent, High, Medium or Low) and adds up to 3 labels, chosen only from the labels your plan's cards already use.

What they write is by Automation and marked Generated by AI, with a sparkle in the Audit Trail and the card's Activity. The card's text is only ever read as data, so words in a card can't make the step do anything else, and an answer that doesn't fit (a type the plan lacks, an unreadable reply) fails the step. A rule holds up to 3 AI actions, at its top level (not inside If / Else or For Related Cards). A plan makes up to 100 AI steps a day; past that the step is skipped with "This plan has used its 100 AI steps today". Test on a Card asks nothing and says what each would do.

Insert a Value

Text a rule writes (a comment, a card's title, an email) can hold values that are filled in when it runs. Pick one from Insert a Value: Card Title, Card Link, Assignee, Column, Due Date, Who Did It, Today and more, or one of your card type's fields from Card Fields. They show as violet chips in the text, and the panel's Preview shows the result on a real card.

Test on a Card

Test on a Card runs the rule as it stands, saved or not, on a card you pick, and changes nothing: you see each step and what it would do.

On a Phone

On a phone a rule opens as a sheet over the Automations screen, and a step's fields open in a second sheet on top of it. Swipe a sheet down, tap outside it, or press your phone's Back to close it: Back closes the sheet, never the plan. With unsaved changes, closing the rule asks Discard Changes? first.

Start a Rule from Another Tool

A rule whose trigger is Incoming Webhook (under Other Tools in Pick a Trigger) is started by another tool: your CI when a build finishes, a form service, a script. Save the rule, then in its When panel:

Copy the rule's Address.
Press Make Secret. The secret is shown once, with Copy and "You won't see it again": keep it where the other tool keeps its passwords. Afterwards the panel shows only its last 4 characters, when it was made and when it was last used.
Have the tool send a POST with JSON to the address, proving the secret one of two ways.

With the secret in a header:

curl -X POST 'https://www.liveplanner.app/api/hooks/automations/<plan>/<rule>' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SECRET" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"cards": [12, 14], "build": {"status": "green"}}'

With a signature, an HMAC-SHA256 of the exact body keyed with the secret, so the secret itself never travels:

BODY='{"cards": [12, 14], "build": {"status": "green"}}'
SIG=$(printf '%s' "$BODY" | openssl dgst -sha256 -hmac "$SECRET" | sed 's/^.* //')
curl -X POST 'https://www.liveplanner.app/api/hooks/automations/<plan>/<rule>' \
  -H "X-Liveplanner-Signature: sha256=$SIG" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d "$BODY"

The rule runs on each card the body names by number in cards (up to 10). With no cards named, it runs once with no card, which suits a rule that only makes a card or posts a message; a rule whose steps change a card is skipped instead. Anything else in the body is yours to use: in Insert a Value, Webhook Field… takes a path such as build.status and fills it in as plain text, up to 5 names deep and 500 characters. The runs are by Automation, and Who Did It reads "Incoming webhook".

The tool hears back 202 with how many runs were queued. A wrong or old secret, or a rule that is off or deleted, all answer 401; a call not sent as JSON (Content-Type: application/json) 415; a body that isn't a JSON object, or a cards that isn't a list of card numbers, 400; one over 16 KB 413; more than 60 calls a minute, or a plan past its runs for the day, 429 with when to try again. Regenerate makes a new secret and stops the old one at once; turning the rule off or deleting it stops calls too. Only an Editor of the whole plan, signed in, makes or regenerates the secret.

Start a Rule from GitHub

Once the plan is connected to GitHub, the GitHub group of Pick a Trigger starts a rule from a linked pull request: Pull Request Opened (ready for review, reopened, or out of draft), Pull Request Merged, Pull Request Closed (without merging) and Checks Finished (turned Failing, or Passing). The rule runs once on each card the pull request links: by a Pull Request field, a Link field, or its title or body naming the card, like "Work Tracker #12". Two rules cover the usual flow:

Pull Request Opened, then Move to Column In Review.
Pull Request Merged, then Move to Column Done.

Their changes are by GitHub on the card, with the rule's name beside it, and a GitHub event never runs a rule twice or moves a card backwards. Press GitHub in the screen's header to connect, pick the repositories the plan hears, or disconnect; a GitHub trigger's panel connects in place and brings you back to the rule. On a liveplanner without GitHub set up, neither shows.

What You See on a Card

A rule's changes are by Automation, with the rule's name beside it:

The card's Activity lists them with a lightning bolt: "Automation set Completed On to 11 Nov 2026 · Done Means Wrapped Up".
A field a rule set last shows a small Set by Automation chip in Details.
A comment a rule added shows the bolt and the rule's name, which opens the rule for an Editor (a rule deleted since says This Rule Was Deleted); one an AI action wrote also says Generated by AI.
A rule a GitHub trigger started is by GitHub instead, with GitHub's mark: "GitHub · Done When It Merges".

Run Rule

A rule whose trigger is Run from a Card is started by hand: open the card, press ⋯, then Run Rule and pick it. A message says it ran, or why it couldn't.

Rules and Other Rules

A rule's changes don't set off other rules, so two rules can never keep changing a card back and forth. To let them, open Rule Details in the rule and tick Let this rule's changes trigger other rules. Even then, a chain stops after 5 rules, and a rule never answers its own changes.

Limits and Pausing

A plan holds up to 50 rules, each with up to 10 conditions and 20 actions (a For Related Cards step's count too), of which up to 5 post messages.
A plan makes up to 1,000 runs a day (UTC), counted as each run starts, so runs that start together never pass it; past that, what would start a rule is let go and rules run again the next day. A No Match doesn't count.
One move runs Card Unblocked or Related Cards Done on up to 100 cards, the first by their number; past that the Audit Trail says "Ran on 100 of 340 cards: at most 100 a move" and the rest are left out. A time trigger runs on up to 100 cards a time. Past that, Overdue and Card Stuck reach the rest at their next times; Scheduled and Due In leave the rest out, and the Audit Trail says so.
A rule holds up to 3 AI actions, and a plan makes up to 100 AI steps a day, rules and Describe a Rule together, even when they ask at once; past that, AI steps are skipped until the next day.
A rule that fails 10 times in a row turns itself off and is marked Paused with the reason. Fix what it names, then press Resume. When a webhook stopped it, Fix Webhook opens the plan's webhooks.
A rule that names something the plan no longer has (a column, a card type, a field, a person, a saved filter, a Form tab, or the card a Link Cards step points at) says Needs Attention and what is missing, in words: "Needs Attention: A column is gone · Someone is gone". Its steps say the same ("Move to a column no longer here", "Assign Someone No Longer Here"). A condition naming one doesn't hold, and an action that reaches one fails its run, saying what is gone. Open the step and pick again.
A rule with a GitHub trigger on a plan that isn't connected to GitHub (or no longer is) hears nothing, so it says Needs Attention: GitHub isn't connected, with Connect GitHub after it. Connect the plan and the line goes.

Agents and the CLI

An AI tool connected through the MCP server, or a script with the command line, can read and work your rules as you would:

List rules (list_rules, or liveplanner rule ls) reads each rule's sentence, whether it is on, paused or needs attention, its last run, its runs this week and its next run. Ask for one rule by its name to get it whole (liveplanner rule get), or for the Audit Trail (liveplanner rule log) to see what recent runs did.
Change rules (change_rules) adds, changes, turns on and off, copies and deletes rules, tests one on a card and runs a Run from a Card rule. On the command line those are rule add, rule set, rule on, rule off, rule duplicate, rule rm, rule test and rule run, a rule written as JSON in a file.
The AI names columns, card types, fields and people the way your board shows them ("Done", "Bug", "Ana Costa"). A rule it saves says Edited by you, marked (Agent).
It reaches your rules only when you are an Editor of the whole plan, as you would. A read-only connection can list rules and the Audit Trail but never change, test or run them.

Who Can

Only an Editor of the whole plan makes, changes, turns on or off, tests and runs rules, in the editor or through an AI tool or the command line acting for them. Everyone's changes, a Participant's included, can start them. Rules run on our servers, even when nobody has the plan open, so a plan in Browser Storage has none: its Automations button says so and offers Sync Plan, as Share does; once it is synced, Automations opens. Rules are also an account's work: if you aren't signed in, Automations asks you to sign in first, then opens on your rules. Rules are copied when you duplicate a plan, each on or off as it was; a plan's exported file carries them too, and they come back off when it is imported.

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