> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.colossal.sh/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Overview

> Build commerce automations with natural language.

With Colossal Automations you can automate your commerce operations by describing what you want in the chat interface. The Automation Builder composes **events** and **actions** from your installed [connections](https://colossal.sh/apps) and from Colossal App into automations.

## How it works

An automation connects an **event** (what starts it) to a sequence of **steps**:

1. An event fires the automation: a commerce event from the Colossal app, a webhook from a third-party connection, or a schedule
2. Steps execute in order, with support for branching, loops, parallel execution, and Custom agent steps
3. Each step can reference data from the event and previous steps using [data access](/automations/data-access) variables

The [automation definition](/automations/definition) reference has the fields a definition takes, and a complete worked example.

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
    A[ORDER_CONFIRMED] --> B{High value?}
    B -->|Yes| C[Flag order]
    B -->|No| D((End))
    C --> E[Notify Slack]
```

## Events

| Type                                                      | Description                                                                                       |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Colossal events](/apps/colossal-app/events)              | Fire on Colossal commerce events — orders, products, payments, invoices, customers, notifications |
| [Storefront events](/apps/colossal-app/storefront-events) | Fire on cart and checkout events                                                                  |
| [Connection events](/automations/connections)             | Fire when an external connection sends an event to your project                                   |
| [Scheduled events](/automations/events/scheduled-events)  | Fire on a cron schedule or at recurring intervals                                                 |

## Creating automations

Open the Colossal dashboard and describe your automation in the chat:

* *"When an order is confirmed, send a Slack notification to #orders"*
* *"Every morning at 9am, check inventory levels and email me a report"*
* *"When a customer places an order over \$500, flag it as high-value and notify the team"*

The assistant generates the automation, validates it, and creates it in your project. You can edit existing automations the same way. Describe what you want to change, or ask it to revert the last change to a previous saved version.

## How a run behaves

Each automation run tracks:

* **Status**: `pending`, `running`, `completed`, `failed`, `cancelled`, `paused`
* **Step-level status**: `pending`, `running`, `completed`, `failed`, `skipped`, `cancelled`
* **Event data**: the event or schedule that started the run
* **Step outputs**: results from each completed step

A run is durable. If a step fails, the engine retries automatically. Monitor runs in the dashboard, or query them with the [MCP server](/developer-tools/mcp).