notis-automation

Notis Automation Skill

Use this skill whenever the user wants something to happen later, on a schedule, or in response to an event. It covers the three Notis building blocks and how they fit together:

• Skills hold the business logic — the reusable "what to do".
• Automations are the glue: they link a trigger to business logic. They are also how you make Notis do something in the future.
• Reminders are dumb: they deliver a fixed message at a time or on a schedule. No reasoning, no tools, no computed content.

The single most important job of this skill is to pick the right primitive, then build a valid payload for it.

Tool names

These are native Notis tools. When their canonical LOCAL_NOTIS_* names are available in the current tool set, call them directly. Do not send an already-available native automation or reminder tool through COMPOSIO_SEARCH_TOOLS or wrap it in COMPOSIO_MULTI_EXECUTE_TOOL; discovery is only for a capability that is not loaded. Always call native tools by their canonical names:

Area	Canonical tools
Reminders	LOCAL_NOTIS_INSERT_REMINDER, LOCAL_NOTIS_UPDATE_REMINDER, LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_REMINDERS, LOCAL_NOTIS_DELETE_REMINDER
Automations	LOCAL_NOTIS_INSERT_AUTOMATION, LOCAL_NOTIS_UPDATE_AUTOMATION, LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_AUTOMATIONS, LOCAL_NOTIS_GET_AUTOMATION, LOCAL_NOTIS_RUN_AUTOMATION, LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_AUTOMATION_RUNS, LOCAL_NOTIS_GET_AUTOMATION_RUN, LOCAL_NOTIS_DELETE_AUTOMATION, LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_INTEGRATION_TRIGGERS
Skills	LOCAL_NOTIS_CREATE_SKILL, LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_SKILLS, LOCAL_NOTIS_UPDATE_SKILL, LOCAL_NOTIS_INSTALL_SKILL, LOCAL_NOTIS_DISABLE_SKILL, LOCAL_NOTIS_DELETE_SKILL
Databases (for database triggers)	LOCAL_NOTIS_DATABASE_LIST_DATABASES, LOCAL_NOTIS_DATABASE_GET_DATABASE

The paradigm

trigger  ->  automation  ->  business logic (often a skill)
time     ->  reminder     ->  static message

• A trigger is anything that should start work: a clock (cron), a future moment (one-time), an inbound HTTP call (webhook), an external integration event (new email, new calendar event), or a change to a Notis database record.
• An automation binds a trigger to a prompt that the Notis agent actually runs (a full agent turn). The prompt is the glue, not the place to dump a long procedure.
• A skill is where the real, reusable procedure lives. When the work is non-trivial or will be reused, put the steps in a skill and have the automation's prompt cite that skill (/skill-name). Keep automation prompts thin; keep logic in skills.
• A reminder is for when there is literally nothing to compute — the user just wants a nudge with fixed text.

Choose the primitive

The user wants...	Use	Why
A fixed nudge at a time or on a schedule ("remind me to call the dentist at 5pm")	Reminder	No reasoning needed — just deliver the exact text
Work to run on a schedule, on an event, or via a webhook ("every Monday summarize last week's deals", "reply when a new Gmail arrives")	Automation	A trigger must run business logic
To run a one-off task in the future ("in two hours, draft the recap")	Automation with trigger_type: "one_time"	"Do something later" that involves work is still an automation
A future message with fixed text and no computation ("at 6pm tonight, message me 'leave for the airport'")	Reminder with trigger_type: "one_time"	Future, but still just a static message
The procedure to be reusable across many triggers/threads	A skill (cited by the automation)	Business logic belongs in a skill

Rules of thumb:

• If the action needs the agent to think, read or write a database, call any tool, fetch anything, or produce computed text → automation, never a reminder.
• "In the future" alone does not mean reminder. A future task with work is a one-time automation; a future fixed message is a one-time reminder.
• If you find yourself writing a long step-by-step procedure inside an automation prompt, stop and move it into a skill, then cite the skill from the prompt.

Before creating anything, list what already exists (LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_REMINDERS, LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_AUTOMATIONS) so you do not create a duplicate, and confirm the trigger and the action with the user in plain language.

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Two rules for writing automation prompts

These two mistakes break automations. Always follow them.

1. Never put the delivery destination in the prompt

Where the automation's response goes is set by the channel (and channel_account_id) field — not the prompt. The automation's output is delivered to that channel automatically.

• Do not write "send this to me on WhatsApp", "post the summary to Slack", "email me the result", or "reply in this thread" in the prompt.
• The prompt describes only the work and the output to produce. Delivery is configured separately.

Bad  prompt:  "Summarize yesterday's sales and post it to my Slack."
Good prompt:  "Summarize yesterday's sales."     (with channel: "slack")

2. Never put scheduling / recurrence wording in the prompt

The schedule lives in the trigger (the cron expression / one-time timestamp). The prompt runs once each time the trigger fires. If the prompt says "every morning", "each Monday", "daily", or "set this up to run…", the agent may interpret it as an instruction to create another automation — causing a recursive loop instead of doing the work.

• Write the prompt as a single, present-tense action to perform right now.
• Leave all timing/frequency to the trigger.

Bad  prompt:  "Every morning, send me a digest of new emails."
Good prompt:  "Compile a digest of emails received since yesterday."   (with cron: "0 8 * * *")

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House rules

• Plain language to the user. Talk about "a reminder", "a weekly automation", "the Slack channel", "the Tasks database" — not tool names, trigger_type values, or raw JSON. Build and validate the payloads internally.
• Delivery is the channel, never the prompt. Set where output goes via channel/channel_account_id. Keep "send to…", "post to…", "email me…", "reply in thread" out of the automation prompt.
• No recurrence wording in the prompt. The schedule lives in the trigger. A prompt that says "every morning" or "set up a daily…" risks the agent creating another automation instead of doing the work. Write the prompt as one present-tense action.
• Discover before you ask. Resolve picker-backed values yourself before asking the user: channel account (when multiple), integration toolkit/trigger/connected account (LOCAL_NOTIS_LIST_INTEGRATION_TRIGGERS), and database id + property ids (LOCAL_NOTIS_DATABASE_LIST_DATABASES / LOCAL_NOTIS_DATABASE_GET_DATABASE). One match → confirm; several → offer the choices; none → ask or defer.
• Never invent identifiers. Integration providers, triggerNames, connectedAccountIds, database_ids, and property_ids must come from discovery, not memory.
• Resolve the schedule. A schedule trigger needs a concrete cron expression; a one-time trigger needs a real future timestamp with timezone. Do not create a scheduled item with the timing unresolved.
• Dedupe. List existing reminders/automations first and remove duplicates rather than stacking near-identical ones.
• Confirm, then create. Recap the trigger and the action in one short plain-language line, get a yes, create it, then surface the portal URL (and webhook URL, if any).
• Right primitive. Static message → reminder. Work on a trigger → automation. Reusable logic → skill cited by the automation. When in doubt between a one-time reminder and a one-time automation, ask whether the future action is fixed text or actual work.

For an automation, read automation-common plus its one trigger guide. For a fixed message, read reminders only. Reusable procedures use skill-business-logic.

Task guides

Read only the guide needed for this task. Relative links resolve in the skill bundle. For hosted MCP, fetch the matching notis://docs/notis-automation/references/<file>.md URI with resources/read or the available Notis resource-fetch tool; the root resource also rewrites these links to their published URIs.

• Reminders (dumb message delivery)
• Automations (trigger -> business logic)
• Trigger type: schedule (recurring)
• Trigger type: one_time (do something in the future)
• Trigger type: webhook (inbound HTTP)
• Trigger type: integration (connected app events)
• Trigger type: database (Notis record change)
• The skill-as-business-logic pattern