How automations work: when, if, then, otherwise

5 min · Automations and schedules

An automation is a rule that runs by itself: when something happens, if your conditions hold, then do these steps, otherwise do those. Minda has no built-in rules. None exist and none run until you make one.

Where they live

Settings → Automations has four tabs: Rules, Templates, Activity and Cloud. Press New automation to build one, or Build with AI and describe it in a sentence. The AI chat can do it too: whenever a download finishes, save a note with its file name. The chat can also list your rules, turn them off and delete them.

When: the trigger

Each rule waits for one thing:

A new message arrives, a download finishes, or a background task ends
Something on a page changes, or a page opens
At a time you pick
This computer changes: it goes idle, locks, sleeps or goes offline
Your bot gets a message
A web address of yours is called, or a public page or API changes
Someone you follow posts or comments
Only when you run it
An automation fails

If: conditions

With no condition, the steps run every time. Press Add a condition to narrow it, up to five. Each compares a field with words such as is, contains, starts with, is above, is below or is between. With two or more, choose All of these or Any one of these.

Then and otherwise: the steps

Each side holds up to five steps, run in order. Some of the most useful:

Post a notice in Minda, save a note, or save a screenshot
Send to your Telegram, an email or a WhatsApp message
Send to a web address (webhook) or call an API
Open, read, click or type on a page
Ask AI, or start an agent in the background that only reads
Run a routine, run another automation, or run an n8n workflow

Otherwise steps need a condition: they run when the conditions don't hold.

Safety rails built in

Automations never click or type on chat, social or mail sites, whose terms ban automated sending, and never type in a password field.
What happened never chooses the page or the words: an address, the thing you picked and the text you wrote are used as written.
Each rule waits between runs (60 seconds by default) and runs at most 20 times an hour by default. Change both in the editor's Settings.
Private windows trigger nothing.
A computer keeps up to 50 automations.

When a site redesigns, a click or type step finds what you picked again by its name, such as Add to cart. If two things share the name, it stops and asks you to pick again rather than guess.

See the flow

The editor draws a rule on a Canvas, steps left to right, or as Steps, one card each, top to bottom. On the Rules tab, switch between List and Flow.

A first rule to try: when a download finishes, if its name contains invoice, save a note.