Triggers and scheduling

What you will do

Replace the Chat Trigger with other trigger types so your workflow runs automatically.

Trigger types

n8n offers many trigger nodes. The most common for agent workflows:

• Schedule Trigger. Runs the workflow at a set time (every hour, every day at 9am, every Monday).
• Webhook Trigger. Runs when an external service sends an HTTP request to a URL that n8n provides.
• Email Trigger (IMAP). Runs when a new email arrives in a specific inbox.
• App-specific triggers. Gmail, Slack, Airtable, Notion, and others have dedicated trigger nodes that fire on specific events.

Replace the Chat Trigger with a Schedule Trigger

1. Delete the Chat Trigger node (or disconnect it).
2. Add a Schedule Trigger node.
3. Configure it: every Monday at 8:00 AM.
4. Connect it to your AI Agent node or to a chain of processing nodes.

Now the workflow runs automatically every Monday morning. The AI Agent node receives a predefined prompt (which you set in the workflow logic) instead of a typed message.

Add a webhook trigger

A webhook trigger gives your workflow a unique URL. When something sends a POST request to that URL (Zapier, a form submission, your own app), the workflow starts.

1. Add a Webhook node.
2. n8n generates a test URL and a production URL.
3. Use the test URL while building. Switch to the production URL when you activate the workflow.
4. The webhook node receives the request body as data that downstream nodes can use.

Combine triggers

A workflow can have multiple triggers. The same processing logic fires whether the trigger was a schedule, a webhook, or a Slack message. This is useful when you want the same agent to respond to both scheduled tasks and on-demand requests.

Activate the workflow

Triggers only fire on active workflows. Click the Active toggle in the top right of the editor to activate. The workflow is now live and will run when the trigger condition is met.

What you should see

A workflow that starts automatically based on a schedule, webhook, or app event, without you manually clicking anything.