# Automations

> Have a skill run by itself after each meeting is processed, before calendar meetings, or on a schedule. Automations need Pro and run while Samurai Scribe is open.

- Page: https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/automations/
- Checked with Samurai Scribe 0.65.0
- Plan: needs Pro

An [automation](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#automation) runs one of your [skills](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/) by itself: after each meeting is processed, a few minutes before calendar meetings, or on a schedule. The skill says what to do; the automation says when, and for which meetings. Automations need Pro, and they run only while Samurai Scribe is open. Without Pro, you can still run any skill by hand.

## Make an automation

On the **Skills** page, open the **Automations** tab and press **New automation**. You need at least one skill first. There are two shortcuts:

- Hover over a skill's card and press **Run it by itself…**. The new automation is filled in from the skill's suggestion, if it has one.
- After you install a shared skill whose author suggests when to run it, the app asks **Run it automatically?**. **Make an automation** opens a new automation for it, filled in.

The automation has these fields:

- **Run**: the skill.
- **When**: **After each meeting is processed**, **Before calendar meetings** or **On a schedule**.
- For a schedule: **How often** (**Every day**, **Weekdays**, **Every week** or **Every hour**), a **Day** for a weekly one, and **At**, a time written as HH:MM in your computer's local time, such as 08:00 or 17:30.
- For calendar meetings: **How long before**, 5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes. 10 is the default.
- For the two kinds about meetings: **Only meetings titled with (optional)**. See [Only some meetings](#only-some-meetings).
- For a skill that takes an argument, a field named after it, such as **Language**: "What the skill is given each time it runs." See [Arguments](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/writing/#arguments).
- For a schedule and a skill that works on notes: **Choose a note…**, the note each run is on. Until you choose one, the editor says "Runs on no note yet".
- **Its meeting**, for **After each meeting is processed**, and **Elsewhere**: what the skill may change without asking. See [What it may change](#what-it-may-change).

Press **Save**. One skill can have several automations, and the skill's card shows when it runs, such as "After each meeting" or "Every day at 08:00".

## When each one runs

![Around a calendar meeting, Before calendar meetings runs 5 to 60 minutes before the meeting starts, 10 by default, and hands the skill the calendar event with its time, people and invite. After each meeting is processed runs when the meeting's run finishes, and hands the skill the meeting with its transcript, notes and documents. On a schedule runs every hour, every day, on weekdays or once a week at a time you choose, and hands the skill nothing, so the skill looks up what it needs. All of them run only with Pro and while Samurai Scribe is open, and a scheduled time missed by more than an hour is skipped.](https://samuraiscribe.com/images/docs/automations/when-they-run.svg "What starts each kind of automation, and what it hands the skill.")

### After each meeting is processed

It runs when a meeting's [run](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#run) finishes, and hands the skill that meeting: its transcript, notes and documents.

- **Any finished run counts**: one you start with **Run**, one that starts when a recording stops (**Settings → Mic & Audio → Process automatically when a recording stops**), and each meeting of a bulk import while **Run after-meeting automations** is ticked, as it is to begin with.
- **A meeting nobody runs never triggers it.** By default (**Calendar meetings**), a recording started from a calendar meeting is processed when it stops; any other recording, such as a Quick Record, waits for you to press **Run**.
- **Once per meeting.** Running the meeting again doesn't run the automation again.
- **Not twice.** If the meeting's [processing profile](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/) already ran the same skill as a step, the automation leaves it.
- A run that fails or that you stop doesn't trigger it.
- **A run waiting for your review** triggers it once you have kept or discarded what a step left waiting (see [Processing profiles](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/#when-a-step-waits-for-your-review)).

### Before calendar meetings

It runs the chosen number of minutes before a calendar meeting starts, and hands the skill the calendar event: its title, time, attendees and invite.

- It needs a connected calendar.
- It skips all-day events, cancelled ones and ones you declined. Each occurrence of a repeating meeting counts on its own.
- Samurai Scribe has to be open in the minutes before the meeting. Once the meeting has started, that occasion is gone.

### On a schedule

It runs at the time you set, and hands the skill the note you chose for it, or nothing. A skill handed nothing looks up what it needs itself, such as last week's meetings, so it should be one that works on nothing in particular (**WORKS ON** with nothing ticked, or **Also without one**).

- **Every hour** runs once an hour, at the start of the hour.
- **If the app wasn't open** at the time, or the computer was asleep, the automation still runs as long as Samurai Scribe is running again within an hour of that time. Later than that, the time is skipped rather than caught up, and the next one runs as usual.
- **Saving waits for the next time.** An automation saved, or switched back on, after its time has passed first runs at its next time: tomorrow for a daily one, next week for a weekly one.

## Only some meetings

**Only meetings titled with** limits an automation about meetings to those whose title contains what you type, ignoring capitals. With `Acme`, it runs for "Acme weekly sync" and "Call with ACME", and for no other meeting. For **After each meeting is processed**, the title is the meeting's title when its run finishes.

Leave it empty to run for every meeting.

## What the skill is handed, and what it expects

What an automation hands a skill follows from when it runs: the meeting that just ended, the calendar meeting about to start, or nothing. A skill says what it works on under **WORKS ON** in its editor. If the two don't match, the automation editor warns that the skill may not know what to do with it, but saves the automation anyway. [Writing a skill](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/skills/writing/#make-a-skill-in-the-app) explains **WORKS ON**.

## Where the results go

Each run is a conversation in the assistant, named after the skill and what it ran on.

- **The Log tab** on the Skills page lists every run. An automation's runs that you haven't opened yet are in bold, with a dot, and hovering the assistant's button says "A skill ran — see what it did". Click a run to open its conversation and see what the skill did.
- **What it changes follows the automation's two settings**, not the assistant's mode: see [What it may change](#what-it-may-change). A change that waits shows in a card at the bottom right of the window, with **Review…**, **Discard** and **Keep**, and a change to a meeting is listed under that meeting's **All changes**. See [Changes, modes and undo](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/assistant/changes/).

## What it may change

A skill run by an automation may change notes wherever **Settings → AI Apps → Folder Access** lets AI edit. Two settings in the automation's editor say what applies without asking. Each has an ⓘ that explains it.

### Its meeting

**Its meeting**, only for **After each meeting is processed**, covers what the skill changes in the meeting it runs on: its documents, its transcript and its notes.

| Setting | What happens |
|---|---|
| **Auto**, the default | Changes are made as it runs, with undo. |
| **Accept edits** | The same, but moving or deleting the meeting's documents waits for you. |
| **Review** | Every change waits for you. |

### Elsewhere

**Elsewhere** covers every other note in the vault.

| Setting | What happens |
|---|---|
| **Ask** | Reads other notes, changes none. |
| **Review**, the default | Changes wait for you; you review them afterwards. |
| **Accept edits** | Edits and new notes are made as it runs, with undo. |

Choosing **Accept edits** for **Elsewhere** asks first (**Change notes without asking?**): the automation will then change notes every time it runs, with nobody reading the change first. Moves and deletes outside the meeting always wait, and so does anything in your Skills, Scripts and Dictionary folders.

> [!TIP]
> To have a skill write a document into every meeting, such as a recap, add it as a step of your [processing profile](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/profiles/) instead. A profile step is free, and writes its document straight into the meeting when you run it. Automations suit work outside the meeting: a running log, a weekly review, a brief before a call, issues in a tracker.

## Connections in automatic runs

A skill can work in a service such as Linear or Notion through a [connection](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/glossary/#connection). In a run nobody is watching, each of the service's actions does what its permission on the **Connections** tab says:

- **Off**: never used.
- **Ask**: waits for you.
- **Allow**: runs if it only reads. An action that changes something waits for you.
- **Allow in automatic runs**: runs with nobody watching. The app asks you to confirm first. It is never a default, and a skill can't set it.

An action that waits shows as a card at the bottom right: "An automation wants to act in Linear", with what it would send. **Approve** runs it; **Deny** doesn't.

If a skill needs a connection you haven't connected, its automations don't run until you connect it.

## Switch one off, change it or delete it

Each automation on the **Automations** tab has:

- **a switch**, to turn it off and on without losing it;
- **Edit**, to change any field;
- **Delete**. The skill itself is kept.

Deleting or renaming a skill leaves its automations in place. Their cards then say **Will not run:** and why: edit them to choose a skill, or delete them.

If two automations would run the same skill for the same meeting, or the same calendar meeting, it runs once.

## With and without Pro

Automations need Pro. A Pro trial that was already running when you updated to 0.65 includes them until it ends; new installs start without a trial. Without Pro, the **Automations** tab and each automation's card carry the Pro mark; the automations are kept as they are, and nothing runs by itself. You can still run their skills by hand, from the Skills page or the assistant. When Pro starts again, they run again, with no restart.

## Several computers

Automations are saved in the vault's hidden `.samurai/` folder, so they travel with a synced vault (Obsidian Sync skips that folder; see [The vault](https://samuraiscribe.com/docs/vault/#syncing-and-backing-up)). Each computer runs them while Samurai Scribe is open there:

- **On a schedule** and **Before calendar meetings** run on every computer where the app is open at the time. With the app open on two computers, a weekly review runs twice.
- **After each meeting is processed** runs on the computer that processed the meeting.

## Why didn't my automation run?

Check these, in order:

1. **Pro.** Is Pro active? A Pro badge on the automation's card means automations aren't running.
2. **The app was open.** Samurai Scribe has to be running at the time, with the computer awake. A scheduled time missed by more than an hour is skipped. A calendar meeting's automation needs the app open before the meeting starts.
3. **The switch.** Is the automation switched on?
4. **Its card says Will not run:** The skill was deleted or renamed, the skill needs fixing, or the schedule can't be read. The message says which.
5. **The title filter.** Does the meeting's title contain the words in **Only meetings titled with**?
6. **After a meeting:** did the meeting's run finish, or is it waiting for your review? Only recordings started from a calendar meeting run by themselves, unless you changed **Process automatically when a recording stops**; others wait for **Run**. Was **Run after-meeting automations** unticked in a bulk import? Did the profile already run the same skill as a step? Has the automation already run once for this meeting?
7. **Before a calendar meeting:** is the calendar connected, and is the meeting a timed one you haven't declined?
8. **A connection.** Does the skill need a service you haven't connected?
9. **Just saved.** A scheduled automation saved after today's time waits for the next one.

If the **Automations** tab says "Automations could not be read, so none are running", the file that holds them is damaged, for example by a sync conflict. The message says where it is. Restore it from your sync tool's history, or move it aside and make the automations again.

If the run happened but nothing seems to have changed, open it from the **Log** tab: what it wrote is probably waiting for your review, as the automation's **Elsewhere** setting starts on **Review**.