Automations and scheduled jobs

Most automations run the moment their trigger fires: a message arrives, a keyword matches, a contact is created. Two things need a clock:

Without the first, Wait steps never finish. Without the second, a customer who walks away from a flow can't trigger another one.

Set the secret#

Both endpoints require the header x-cron-secret to match AUTOMATION_CRON_SECRET. Generate one and add it to your environment:

openssl rand -hex 32

Until it's set, both endpoints answer 503 cron not configured.

Call them on a schedule#

crontab (VPS)#

*/2 * * * * curl -fsS -H "x-cron-secret: $SECRET" https://crm.yourshop.in/api/automations/cron >/dev/null
*/10 * * * * curl -fsS -H "x-cron-secret: $SECRET" https://crm.yourshop.in/api/flows/cron >/dev/null

cron-job.org (any host, free)#

Create two jobs with the URLs above, add a request header x-cron-secret with your secret, and set the intervals.

GitHub Actions#

Add CRM_URL and AUTOMATION_CRON_SECRET as repository secrets, then create .github/workflows/cron.yml:

name: Cron
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '*/5 * * * *'
jobs:
  ping:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: |
          for path in automations/cron flows/cron; do
            curl -fsS -H "x-cron-secret: ${{ secrets.AUTOMATION_CRON_SECRET }}" "${{ secrets.CRM_URL }}/api/$path"
          done

GitHub may delay scheduled runs by several minutes when it's busy, so use crontab or cron-job.org if Wait steps need to be punctual.

Starter automations#

Automations → New offers four starting points, written for a small shop that sells over WhatsApp:

• Welcome message: greets someone the first time they write.
• Out of office: replies outside 9am to 6pm so nobody waits in silence.
• Lead qualifier: when someone asks for a price, rate or quote (or writes "kitna"), asks what they want and how many, then assigns the chat.
• Follow-up reminder: nudges a customer who hasn't replied in a day.

Every one of them is editable. Change the text to sound like you.