Triggers: what starts a workflow

Every workflow begins with exactly one trigger. Until the workflow is published and activated, no trigger fires.

Webhook

The workflow gets its own URL. Anything that can send an HTTP request can start it, and the whole JSON body becomes available to later steps as {{trigger.field}}.

POST https://yakpipes.com/api/workflows/YOUR_TOKEN/trigger

By default anyone holding the URL can trigger the workflow. Under Signature & duplicate protection on the builder page you can require a signature — callers then send an HMAC-SHA256 of the raw body in a header you choose, and unsigned requests are rejected. You can also name a duplicate key (a header or a field): if the same key arrives twice, the second delivery is acknowledged without starting a second run.

Hosted form

A webhook trigger can also publish a shareable form page. Declare the fields you want on the builder page under Hosted form, switch it on, and the workflow gets a public URL:

https://yakpipes.com/f/YOUR_TOKEN

Submissions arrive exactly like any other webhook payload — {{trigger.email}} and so on — and count as webhook runs. Only the fields you declared are accepted, a hidden honeypot field absorbs naive bots, submissions are rate-limited per network, and the form only answers while the workflow is active. Forms are excluded from search engines.

Schedule

Run every N minutes, hours or days, or on a cron expression with a timezone. Daylight-saving changes are handled explicitly rather than drifting. How often you may schedule depends on your plan.

App event (polling)

Watch a connected app for new items — new rows, new tickets, new orders. YakPipes remembers what it has already seen, so each item starts exactly one run. When you first activate it, existing items are recorded but not replayed, so turning a workflow on never floods you with history.

Some apps can push instead of being polled. Where the connector supports it, the step offers to register a webhook with the app, which is faster and cheaper than polling.

Inbound email

Add an Inbound email trigger and the workflow gets its own address (shown under the canvas). Anything sent there starts a run, with the message available as {{trigger.from}}, {{trigger.subject}}, {{trigger.text}} and {{trigger.html}}.

Forward a shared inbox to it, or hand the address to a system that can only email. Spam-flagged mail is dropped, and mail to a paused workflow is ignored.

Called by another workflow

A Subflow entry makes a workflow callable from another one, so shared logic lives in one place. See Call workflow.