Automations

Reference for Brew automations, including nodes, triggers, lifecycle states, merge tags, connected events, and validation errors.

Automations are emails Brew sends in response to events in your business, such as a signup, purchase, or payment failure. This page is the reference for the automation builder and the data it uses.

For the difference between one-off Emails and Automations, see Emails vs Automations. To create and publish a flow, follow Build an Automation.

The Automations List

The Automations list shows every automation with its status and trigger, plus counts for total, live, and draft flows. Search automations, manage trigger events with Triggers, or start a flow with New automation.

Click an automation to open its dedicated canvas. The canvas always shows the flow selected from the list.

The Four Node Types

Every flow has a trigger and four node types.

Send Email. Sends an email to the contact moving through the flow. The node can generate a new email or reference an email design from another flow.

Each contact that reaches a Send Email node produces one send with its own delivery and engagement events. Those sends appear in analytics alongside one-off sends. Personalize with contact properties such as {{ firstName }} or trigger values such as {{ orderId }}.

Wait. Pauses the flow before the next node. Choose a preset duration, such as 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days, or 1 week, or enter a custom value.

Filter. Continues a contact only when a condition matches. Conditions can use contact properties, behavior such as opening a previous email, or trigger payload data.

Split. Creates two filtered paths so contacts receive different experiences, often based on whether they clicked an earlier email.

Triggers

Every automation has a trigger. The trigger picker offers connected-source events, custom HTTP triggers, and manual audiences.

Common trigger moments include new user signup, order placed, trial ending, payment failed, cart abandoned, and subscription canceled.

Changing the Trigger

Click the trigger node to open its config panel. Use Change trigger to select another audience or event without rebuilding the rest of the flow.

Manual Audience

A manual-audience automation runs a saved audience through the graph on demand. Its trigger shows the audience, filter query, and contact count. Runs show Sending while in flight and Sent when complete.

Manual-audience automations are one-off flows. Choose Run now, Schedule, or Gradual send when launching one. See Send Options for details.

The API and MCP also support manual-audience runs, including dry-runs.

Lifecycle States

State	Applies to	Meaning
Draft	All automations	Being created or edited. Not running.
Live	Event-triggered automations	New matching events start the flow.
Sending	Manual-audience automations	A run is in flight.
Sent	Manual-audience automations	The run completed.
Archived	All automations	Halted. No new runs start.

Each save or edit creates a version, shown in the canvas header as a version chip such as v4. Unpublishing keeps history and returns a live flow to Draft. Archiving stops a flow you no longer need.

Personalization

Use merge tags in email content to pull in contact or trigger data:

Source	Syntax	Example
Contact property	{{ firstName }}	Hi Alex,
Custom property	{{ plan }}	Your Pro subscription
Trigger payload	{{ orderId }}	Order #12345
Fallback	{{ firstName | there }}	Hi there, (if no name)

Merge Tags owns the full syntax, the fallback form, and the rules for what resolves.

Trigger Events

Trigger events are signals that start automations.

• Custom HTTP triggers. Events you define and fire from your backend.
• Built-in events. Discovered from connected sources such as Stripe billing events.

Manage both from the Settings link in the trigger panel, or press Cmd+K and search for Trigger events.

See Build an Automation for the same setup written as a step-by-step guide.

Custom Events

1. Create the event

   Open Trigger events from the trigger panel settings link or Cmd+K, then click Create event. Give it a clear, specific name.

   Good: user_signup, order_placed, subscription_renewed Avoid: event1, trigger, do_thing

2. Define the payload schema

   Add the fields your event will send and mark which are required. Brew validates incoming events against this schema and rejects events that don’t match.

   Keep payloads flat. Avoid nested objects when you can, flat payloads are easier to use in email templates.

   Good:

   {
     "email": "[e-mail]",
     "firstName": "Alex",
     "orderId": "ORD-12345",
     "plan": "pro"
   }
   

   Avoid:

   {
     "user": { "email": "[e-mail]", "name": "Alex" },
     "order": { "id": "ORD-12345" }
   }
   
3. Wire it up in your backend

   Send events to Brew’s API with an API key (create one in Settings → API). See the API Reference for the exact contract.

4. Use it in an automation

   In any automation, pick this event as the trigger. Brew populates the trigger node with your schema so you can reference payload fields in emails using {{ fieldName }}.

5. Test before launch

   Send a test event from the Trigger events page. The test runs through your published automations exactly like a real event would, so you can verify the flow end-to-end before going live.

Trigger Best Practices

Use descriptive event names. Names should describe the action. user_signup and order_placed are clear. event1 is not.

Keep payloads flat and minimal. Flat payloads are easier to map to merge tags and easier to maintain. Only include fields you’ll actually use.

Validate types in your schema. Mark fields as string, number, boolean, etc. Brew rejects invalid payloads before they trigger anything, surfacing problems early.

Connected-source Events

Connecting a provider provisions its full event catalogue. The integration’s Manage tab shows the catalogue and a Recent events stream.

An event fires emails only when a Live automation is wired to it. Unpublish the automation to stop its sends, or disconnect the integration to stop every event.

Source	What it covers	Event count
Clerk	User signups, organizations, subscriptions, waitlist entries	13
Stripe	Subscriptions, invoices, checkouts, refunds, quotes	22
Stytch	Consumer and B2B auth, members, organizations	8
Supabase	auth.users and derived auth events	12
WorkOS	SSO users, password reset, organizations, SCIM	18
Shopify	Customers, orders, checkouts, carts, fulfillment	15
RevenueCat	In-app purchases and subscriptions	11

See the Integrations overview for the full list. Brew only listens to connected sources. It does not charge customers, modify subscriptions, refund payments, mutate auth records, or change Shopify orders.

Stripe Events

Brew supports 22 Stripe events across checkout, customer, subscription, invoice, quote, and payment. See the Stripe integration page for the full event list.

What Happens When a Payload Fails Validation

If an event is missing a required field or has a wrong type, Brew returns a 400 INVALID_PAYLOAD error and does not start the automation:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "INVALID_PAYLOAD",
    "message": "Payload validation failed",
    "details": [
      { "field": "orderId", "message": "Required field 'orderId' is missing" }
    ]
  }
}

Fix the payload and send the event again. Errors owns the envelope and the full code catalog.

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