# Create an automation

> Set up a rule that runs actions automatically whenever a matching event happens. A rule reads as When → If → Then: when an event fires, if your conditions…

Source: https://infranest.io/docs/create-an-automation
Last updated: 2026-10-08

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An automation is a rule that runs actions for you whenever something happens in your infrastructure — useful if you want InfraNest to react to events without you clicking through steps by hand.

## Overview

- A rule reads as **When → If → Then**: *when* an event fires, *if* your conditions match, *then* it runs your actions in order.
- You can build a rule from scratch or start from a ready-made template.
- Every rule can be paused, edited, or deleted at any time, and every run is recorded so you can check what happened.

## Create a rule

1. Go to **Automations** and select **New automation**.
2. Under **When**, pick a trigger — the event that starts the rule.
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3. Under **If** (optional), use **Add condition** to narrow when the rule runs. All conditions must match.
4. Under **Then**, use **Add action** to add one or more actions. They run in order, top to bottom.
5. Select **Preview** to see what the rule would do against a real example, then select **Save automation**.

## Start from a template

1. Open the **Template library** tab.
2. Select **Browse all templates** to see the ready-made recipes.
3. Pick one to **Use** as your starting point.
4. Adjust its trigger, conditions and actions to fit your needs, then select **Save automation**.

## Manage a rule

- Use **Turn on** or **Turn off** to pause a rule without deleting it.
- Select **Edit** to change the trigger, conditions or actions.
- Set a **Cooldown** so a rule doesn't fire again too soon for the *same thing*. A rule covering fifty domains still handles all fifty — the wait applies per domain, so one of them being dealt with never holds up the others. The same goes for Linear and Jira issues and PagerDuty incidents: the wait applies to each issue or incident on its own.
- Select **Delete** to remove a rule you no longer need.

> [!NOTE]
> If a rule keeps failing, it may show as **Auto-disabled after repeated failures** so it stops causing repeat problems. Check **Last run failed** for details, fix the issue, then turn it back on.

## After it runs

1. Open the automation and check its **Runs** tab to confirm it worked and see each step's **Result**.
2. Runs are also listed in your **Audit Log** for a full history.

> [!TIP]
> Use **Test run (dry run)** before saving changes to a live rule — it shows what would happen without actually running the actions.