Zendesk Triggers & Automations

Setup

• Credential: HTTP Basic with username [email protected]/token and a Zendesk API token as the password (an admin's, for edits).
• Set the server variable subdomain to your account (for https://acme.zendesk.com use acme).

Explain what a rule does

1. Find it: searchTriggers with query (title words) or filter (e.g. {"json":{"description":"Close a ticket"}}), or listTriggers with active=true, category_id, and sort_by=usage_7d to see the busiest rules. For time-based rules use searchAutomations (query is required) or listAutomations.
2. getTrigger / getAutomation return conditions.all (every one must match) and conditions.any (at least one), each {field, operator, value}, plus actions [{field, value}]. Triggers run in position order on every ticket update; automations run hourly on matching tickets.
3. "Who changed this?" listTriggerRevisions (include=users adds the author), then getTriggerRevision to compare an old version with the current one.
4. listTriggerCategories shows how triggers are grouped.

Draft a new rule or a fix

1. listTriggerDefinitions lists the condition fields, operators and action fields you can use.
2. Build the body: {"trigger": {"title": "...", "category_id": "...", "conditions": {"all": [{"field": "status", "operator": "is", "value": "new"}], "any": []}, "actions": [{"field": "group_id", "value": "123"}]}}.
3. validateTrigger with that body reports errors without saving.
4. Show the user the rule in plain words and get a yes; then createTrigger, or updateTrigger with the full conditions and actions (an update replaces both arrays). Set "active": false to switch a rule off rather than deleting it.
5. Automations work the same way with createAutomation / updateAutomation ({"automation": {...}}); they need a time-based condition (hours since an event, e.g. since the ticket went pending; copy the field names from an existing automation via getAutomation) and a condition that is true only once or an action that cancels one of the conditions, so they fire once per ticket.

Good to know

• Rule changes affect every future ticket: always confirm before create or update, and prefer creating rules inactive first.
• Automations are checked every hour, so a new one takes up to an hour to act.
• Lists page with page/per_page (offset) or page[size]/page[after] (cursor).
• No delete or reorder operations by design.

Source: Zendesk Support API reference (https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/ticketing/business-rules/triggers/), checked 2026-10-25.