Overview
Triggers are events that initiate automated documentation updates in Promptless. When a trigger event occurs, Promptless analyzes the context and determines if documentation updates are needed.
Available trigger types
Section titled “Available trigger types”How triggers work
Section titled “How triggers work”When a trigger event occurs:
- Event Detection: Promptless receives notification of the event (PR opened, message posted, etc.)
- Context Analysis: The system analyzes the event content, including code changes, conversations, or support interactions
- Relevance Assessment: Promptless determines if the event requires documentation updates
- Suggestion Creation: If relevant, Promptless creates documentation suggestions based on the trigger content and connected context sources
Configure triggers
Section titled “Configure triggers”Triggers are configured in your organization’s Configuration page using the triggers section of your promptless.yaml file. For each trigger, you can:
- Specify which repositories or channels to monitor
- Configure trigger-specific settings (e.g., directory filters, branch targeting)
- Set up publishing behavior through policy rules
See the Configuration Reference for the complete YAML schema.
Connect a provider before you add its triggers
Section titled “Connect a provider before you add its triggers”To add, rename, or modify a provider-backed trigger, first connect its provider on the Integrations page. Only organization administrators can connect integrations, so if you’re not an admin, ask one.
Promptless checks only the triggers you add, rename, or modify, so existing triggers and unrelated settings save as usual. A configuration pushed directly to your Agent Knowledge Base is validated as a whole. If any trigger added or changed in that push lacks its integration, Promptless rejects the entire push and keeps your last valid configuration active.
Each provider-backed trigger type needs its matching integration:
- GitHub PR and commit triggers need GitHub (including GitHub OSS or GitHub Enterprise).
- GitLab merge-request triggers need GitLab.
- Bitbucket PR triggers need Bitbucket.
- Slack triggers need Slack.
- Microsoft Teams triggers need Microsoft Teams.
- ClickUp triggers need ClickUp.
- LaunchDarkly flag triggers need LaunchDarkly.
- Jira triggers need Jira, connected through Atlassian.
- Schedule triggers need no integration.
An integration counts as connected once its credentials are in place, even if no channels, repositories, or projects appear yet.
If you disconnect a provider, its triggers stay in your promptless.yaml and show as inactive until you reconnect it. You can remove an inactive trigger at any time. To edit or rename one, reconnect its provider first, or convert it into a Schedule trigger, which saves right away.
Connections are organization-wide, so disconnecting a provider affects every team’s triggers for it.
For how these states appear in the editor, see Provider connection and trigger availability. To check a connection, see Connection health.
Automatic PR creation
Section titled “Automatic PR creation”When automatic PR creation is enabled in your publishing policies, Promptless automatically creates pull requests in your documentation repository with suggested changes. For commit triggers, you can optionally enable auto-merge to automatically merge documentation PRs as soon as they’re created.
Automatic PR creation is available for all Git-hosted documentation platforms.
Trigger events in documentation PRs
Section titled “Trigger events in documentation PRs”When Promptless creates a pull request for documentation updates, it automatically includes a list of trigger events in the PR description. These are the events that led to those changes. This provides valuable context for reviewers and creates clear traceability between documentation updates and their originating events.
Backfill suggestions
Section titled “Backfill suggestions”Backfill suggestions lets you run Promptless on pull requests that already exist. You can catch up on documentation for work that merged before a trigger was watching. It’s available on saved pull request and merge request triggers: GitHub PRs and GitLab merge requests.
Any organization member can view backfill status, progress, and the suggestions a backfill produced, but only admins can select Launch a backfill.
Open the Backfill suggestions panel on a trigger row. Choose a window of the last 7 days, last 14 days, or last 30 days, and select Preview. The preview lists the pull requests opened or merged in that window that the trigger matches. It applies the same repository, topic, directory, and branch filters the trigger uses for live events. A trigger can scope repositories by GitHub topic (the Trigger on repos with certain topics option, covered in Repository topics). For such a trigger, the preview lists pull requests only from repositories that carry a matching topic. Backfill covers up to 1,000 pull requests per repository in the window.
Backfill also replays first approvals for GitHub PR triggers that activate only on first approval. The preview then includes open pull requests whose first approval landed within the selected window, even those opened before it. GitLab merge request and Bitbucket PR triggers don’t replay approvals, so a first-approval trigger on those platforms returns no backfill results.
When the preview looks right, select Launch backfill to run it. Promptless processes each pull request live, exactly as it does for a new event. Your publishing policy applies, so backfilled pull requests can create documentation PRs and send notifications. The panel updates with progress as the run works through the list.