Automations

An automation runs a task for you on a schedule, with no one watching: for example, a weekly summary of what is new in your documents. Automations are in Workspace settings → Automations, on the website only.

Making one

• Create via chat opens your notebooks. Ask a notebook's chat to set up an automation: it shows a Create automation card to Approve, Reject or Edit. You can also reply in the chat to have it redrafted.
• Create manually opens the form below.

Owners and Editors can create, edit and pause automations. Viewers can see them and their runs. Only the workspace Owner can delete one.

The form

Basics. A Name (up to 200 characters) and an optional Description.

Tasks. Each task is one instruction in your own words. Type @ to point it at files, folders or connectors. A task also has:

• Can use: Your documents (the workspace's documents only), Your documents and the web (it can also search the web and read pages, with Tavily, Exa and Browserbase), or The web only (the web and connected apps, not your documents).
• Notebook: Any notebook, or one notebook, so that it answers only from that notebook's switched-on sources.
• Save results to notebook: Don't save, or a notebook. After each run the result is added there as a note, titled with the automation's name and the date, such as "Weekly digest — 2026-10-05".
• Max retries and Timeout, to override the settings below for this task.

You can add more tasks and put them in order with the arrows. Run without asking for approvals is on by default. With it off, anything the assistant would ask you to approve is refused, and the task may not finish.

Schedule. Choose a Frequency: Every hour, Every day, Every weekday (Mon–Fri), Specific days of the week or Once a month. Then set the minute, time, days or day of the month, and the Timezone. A new automation starts as every weekday at 09:00. Advanced: enter a schedule expression takes a five-field cron expression instead, such as 0 9 * * 1-5. Without a schedule, the automation doesn't run on its own.

Schedules are checked every minute. There is no button to run an automation straight away.

Models. The Chat model, Image model and Vision model its runs use. Auto picks a standard model; premium models are marked Premium.

Settings.

• Timeout (seconds): how long a whole run may take, 600 by default and at most 86,400 (24 hours), counted from when it starts. A run still going at the limit is stopped where it is and shown as Timed out; with Email me the result on, you get a short email saying so. A task that runs past its own Timeout is tried again; if its last try runs out of time too, the run is Timed out.
• Max retries: how many times a failed task is tried again, 2 by default, with Retry backoff Exponential (the default), Linear or None.
• If already running: what happens when the schedule comes round while the last run is still waiting to start or running:
  • Skip if already running (the default): the new run is skipped. It doesn't appear in Recent runs.
  • Queue the next run: the new run waits, shown as Pending, and starts when the run before it ends or is cancelled. Waiting runs start one at a time, oldest first. Up to 20 can wait; any more are skipped.
  • Always run: the new run starts at once, alongside the other.
• Tags, to keep automations sorted.
• Email me the result: off by default. See below.

The Summary beside the form sums up what you've set. Edit as JSON shows the same automation as JSON, to edit by hand.

Runs and results

The list shows each automation's Status: Active, Paused or Archived. Open one to Edit, Pause, Resume or Delete it. Its schedule has its own switch, and shows when it fires next.

Recent runs lists the last 20 runs, each Pending (waiting to start, or queued behind another run), Running, Succeeded, Failed, Needs attention, Timed out or Cancelled, with the reason. Open a run to see its output, each task's result (including the task a time limit or a cancel cut off), the files it made and the inputs it ran with.

Cancelling a run. A Pending or Running run has a Cancel button, for Owners and Editors. The run shows Cancelled at once and stops within a few seconds; what it already saved, such as a note, stays. Pause does the same to the run in progress and to any runs waiting behind it. Delete stops a run in progress and removes it with the rest of the history.

If the app restarts in the middle of a run, that run can't finish. About three minutes after its time limit it is shown as Timed out (with the email, if Email me the result is on), and the next queued run starts.

A run that is still waiting to start an hour after it could have started (for example, it was due while the app was down) isn't run late: it is shown as Cancelled, "Not started", and costs nothing. A queued run's hour counts from when the run ahead of it ended.

The result of a run reaches you:

• on the run's page,
• as a note, with Save results to notebook,
• by email, with Email me the result. After each run that finishes, an email with the result goes to the person who created the automation. A run that fails, needs attention or times out sends a short email with the reason instead. A cancelled run sends no email. See Email.

Automation results don't appear in Notifications.

What it costs

Each task in a run costs the same as one chat message on its model: 1 credit on a standard model, 5 on a premium one. If credits have run out, or your plan doesn't include the model, the task fails and says why ("Not enough credits to run this step…" or "Your plan doesn't include this step's model…"). A task cut off by a time limit or a cancel costs nothing; the tasks that finished before it are charged as usual. See Plans and credits.