Knowledge Agent Automations

Knowledge Agent Automations let you schedule a Knowledge Agent to run a prompt on a recurring basis — without manual intervention. You write a free-text prompt telling the agent what to do, pick a schedule, and the automation handles the rest. Every run produces a logged thread in the AI Agent Center, just like a user-initiated chat.

Automations are available on Knowledge Agents with Skills enabled. Anything the agent can do in a chat conversation — invoking skills, drafting Cards, calling connected tools via MCP, posting to Slack — can be put on a schedule.

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Access Required

Manage Own Automations. Any user with this permission on a Knowledge Agent can create, edit, pause, resume, and delete their own automations. The default KA Viewer role includes this permission, so any user with access to a Skills-enabled agent can create automations out of the box.

Manage All Automations. Users with this permission can view, pause, resume, and delete automations created by any user on the Knowledge Agent. The default KA Owner role includes this permission.

To restrict automation creation, assign users a custom role that does not include the Manage Own Automations permission.

Creating an automation

1. In Guru, go to AI Agent Center.
2. Select the Automations tab.
3. Click Add Automation.
4. Choose the Knowledge Agent the automation should run on. The agent must have Skills enabled.
5. Write a prompt describing what the agent should do when triggered.
6. Set a schedule: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.
7. Click Save.

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Tip

The recommended approach is to keep workflow logic inside a skill and use the automation prompt to trigger that skill. For example, a skill that generates a weekly team digest, drafts it as a Guru Card, and shares it to Slack can be triggered by a prompt as simple as: "Run the weekly team digest." If you need a specific output format or additional constraints that only apply to the scheduled run, add those details to the automation prompt itself. The more specific the prompt, the more consistent the output.

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Note

If the automation uses an MCP connection (for example, posting to Slack), the MCP tool must be authenticated on the Knowledge Agent before the automation runs. Set up the connection in the agent's MCP settings first.

Managing automations

The Automations tab in AI Agent Center displays a table of every automation you have access to. What appears in the table depends on your permissions - users see their own automations, while Knowledge Agent Owners with the Manage All Automations permission see all automations on agents they own.

Each automation supports the following actions:

• Edit. Update the prompt or the schedule. Only the user who created the automation can edit it.
• Pause / Resume. Temporarily stop an automation without deleting it. Pausing immediately stops future runs. Resume when you're ready to start runs again.
• Delete. Remove the automation entirely.

Viewing automation runs

Every automation run produces a thread that's logged to AI Agent Center, just like a user-initiated chat. You can review run history in several ways:

• Expand a row in the Automations table to see run history inline.
• Click into an individual run to view the full chat thread the agent produced.
• Filter the Chats/Threads view by thread type to isolate automation threads from user-initiated ones. Automation threads are read-only. They follow the same permission model as regular chat threads — end users see their own automation threads, and Agent Owners see all threads on the agent.

Permissions

Automations introduce two permissions that can be assigned to any role, including custom roles:

If a user loses access to a Knowledge Agent, all of their automations on that agent are automatically paused. The automations are not deleted - if access is restored, they can be resumed.

Frequently asked questions about Knowledge Agent Automations

Do automations work on every Knowledge Agent?

No. Only Knowledge Agents with Skills enabled support automations. The option to create automations does not appear on agents without Skills. Learn how to create a Skills-enabled Agent here.

Can I create automations from chat?

Not at this time. Automations are created from the Automations tab in AI Agent Center using a free-text prompt and schedule configuration.

What's the difference between automations and Knowledge Agent Quality?

Quality is a specific, pre-built automation that ships with Guru and is configured through the Quality tab. Knowledge Agent Automations is the general-purpose system that lets you build your own automations with any prompt. Both run on the same underlying engine.

Can a Knowledge Agent Owner edit an automation someone else created?

No. You can only edit an automation if you created it. KA Owners with the Manage All Automations permission can pause, resume, and delete other users' automations, but not edit them.

What happens if a user loses access to a Knowledge Agent?

All of that user's automations on the Knowledge Agent are automatically paused. They are not deleted — if access is restored, the automations can be resumed.

Can automations notify users when they run or fail?

Not at this time. You can check run status from the Last Run column in the Automations table or by expanding a row to see full run history.

Are automation runs visible to other users?

Automation threads appear in the AI Agent Center under the same permission model as regular chat threads. End users see their own automation threads; KA Owners see all threads on the agent.