Automations

An automation is a rule of the form "when this happens to an idea, do that", like On #sunday → Create a calendar event tomorrow (all day). Rules run on the server, so they fire however the change happened: a drop from your phone, an edit, a tag merge or an assistant working through a connector, even with the app closed.

#Create a rule

1. Open Profile → Automations.
2. Select New rule.
3. Under When, pick a trigger. Under Do this, pick an action and fill in its fields.
4. Check the sentence under the form. It reads your rule back to you, for example On #podcast → Gemini writes a note: “suggest three guests”.
5. Select Save rule.

Each rule in the list has an On/Off switch, Edit and Delete. If you delete a rule by mistake, select Undo in the message that appears.

Tags that an active "gets a tag" rule watches are highlighted across the app. Hover one to see Has an automation. While a rule is running on an idea, the idea's card shows a small Automation running dot.

You can have up to 50 rules.

#Triggers

#Gets a tag

The rule fires when the tag is added to an idea in any way: typed by you, added by an assistant, added by another rule, or brought in by a tag merge. A new idea saved with the tag counts too, including one saved offline that syncs later.

Archived ideas and ideas in the trash don't fire tag rules.

#Time triggers

For Since created, Since updated and Since opened, set How long in hours, days, weeks or months. The time must be between 1 hour and 1 year. A month counts as 30 days.

• Since updated: editing the idea, changing its tags, or adding or editing a note counts as an update. Notes that automations write, like AI notes and calendar notes, don't count. Archiving the idea doesn't count either.
• Since opened: opening the idea in the app, or an assistant reading it, counts. An idea that has never been opened counts from when it was created.

Time rules are checked every 10 minutes, so a rule can fire up to about 10 minutes after the idea is due.

Time rules have two more options:

• Include archived ideas: off by default, so archived ideas are skipped.
• Also apply to ideas already past this: off by default. The rule then acts only on ideas that come due after you save it. Turn it on to also catch every idea that is already past the time. For example, "hasn't been opened for 3 months" with this on fires for every idea you haven't opened in 3 months.

#Archived

Under Archived by, choose whose archiving fires the rule: Me, Assistants, Automations, or any mix. Pick at least one. All three are on by default.

An Archived rule can't use the Archive action, because the idea is already archived.

#Limit to one tag

For every trigger except Gets a tag, the Only ideas tagged field limits the rule to ideas with that tag. Use one tag, like #work, or leave it empty for all ideas.

#How often a rule fires

#Actions

#Calendar

This action creates an event in the primary calendar of your Google account. First connect the account. On the Google Calendar card at the top of Automations, select Connect and allow access on Google's screen. The card then shows Connected as your Google address. Select Disconnect to remove the connection. Idea Bucket only asks for access to calendar events.

Choose the Day:

• The same day: the day the rule fired.
• The next day.
• On the next… a Weekday you pick. If the rule fires on that weekday, the event goes on the same weekday a week later.
• A few days later: 1 to 365 Days later.

Choose the Time:

• All day.
• At a set time: pick when it Starts at and how long it Lasts (15 min up to 8 hours).

Dates and times use the time zone your device had when you saved the rule. The event title is the first line of the idea, cut to 120 characters. The description holds the full idea, its tags and a link to Idea Bucket.

When the event is created, the idea gets a note like "📅 Added to Google Calendar for Sun 4 Oct at 09:00", with an Open the event link. The run in Recent runs has an Open event link too.

#AI note

Under Ask Gemini to, write an instruction of up to 1,000 characters, like "outline 3 next steps" or "suggest a title for this #podcast episode". Gemini reads the idea and its tags and adds its answer to the idea as a note signed Gemini.

#Add tags and Remove tags

List up to 10 tags, like #work #later. Adding a tag that's already there, or removing one that isn't, does nothing. The run is then marked Skipped with "No change".

For Add tags, you can also pick a Color (Violet, Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Orange, Red or Pink). When you save the rule, those tags take that color. Choose Keep current to leave their colors alone.

Tags added by a rule can fire other "gets a tag" rules. For example, On #podcast → Add #listen followed by On #listen → Create a calendar event… creates the event when you tag an idea #podcast.

#Archive

This action moves the idea to your archive. The idea is marked as archived by an automation, so an Archived rule limited to Automations fires next.

#Webhook

This action sends the idea to your own URL as an HTTPS POST, for Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. Paste the URL. It must start with https:// and point to a public address. Local and private addresses are refused.

The editor creates a Signing secret for the rule. Copy it into the service that receives the requests, so it can check that each request came from Idea Bucket. See Verify the signature.

#Dispatch Grok Bot

This action hands the idea to a Grok Bot coding agent, which starts building it and reports back on the idea. Nothing is sent until you select Send on the idea. The rule sentence ends in (asks first). For setup, see Grok Bot dispatch.

#Webhook requests

Each request is a POST with these headers:

The body looks like this:

{
  "event": "idea.tagged",
  "tag": "podcast",
  "idea": {
    "id": "6f1c2a9e-3b7d-4e8a-9c41-2d5f8b7a1e03",
    "content": "Interview a beekeeper about urban hives",
    "tags": ["podcast", "garden"],
    "created_at": "2026-09-28T08:14:03.512+00:00",
    "archived_at": null
  },
  "automation": {
    "id": "b2e4d6f8-1a3c-4e5f-8a7b-9c0d1e2f3a4b",
    "tag": "podcast",
    "action": "webhook",
    "trigger": "tag",
    "after_minutes": null
  },
  "run_id": "0d9e8f7a-6b5c-4d3e-2f1a-0b9c8d7e6f5a",
  "sent_at": "2026-09-28T08:14:05.201Z"
}

Any 2xx answer counts as success. Idea Bucket doesn't follow redirects: a 3xx answer fails the run. Your endpoint must answer within 10 seconds. A failed request isn't retried automatically. Select Retry on the run to send it again.

#Verify the signature

Idea Bucket signs every webhook request this way:

• What's signed: the raw request body, exactly as received, as UTF-8 bytes. There is no timestamp in the signature. sent_at in the body tells you when the request was sent.
• Key: your rule's Signing secret, used as text (its UTF-8 characters). Don't hex-decode it, even though it looks like hex.
• Algorithm: HMAC-SHA256, written as lowercase hex.
• Header: x-ideabucket-signature: sha256=<64 hex characters>.

Compute the same value over the raw body and compare it with the header in constant time. Do this before you parse the JSON: parsing and re-serialising the body changes the bytes.

#Node.js

This example uses only Node's built-in modules (Node 18 or later):

import { createHmac, timingSafeEqual } from 'node:crypto'
import { createServer } from 'node:http'

const SECRET = process.env.IDEABUCKET_SIGNING_SECRET // the rule's Signing secret

function isValid(rawBody, header) {
  const expected = 'sha256=' + createHmac('sha256', SECRET).update(rawBody).digest('hex')
  const given = Buffer.from(header ?? '', 'utf8')
  const wanted = Buffer.from(expected, 'utf8')
  return given.length === wanted.length && timingSafeEqual(given, wanted)
}

createServer((req, res) => {
  const chunks = []
  req.on('data', chunk => chunks.push(chunk))
  req.on('end', () => {
    const rawBody = Buffer.concat(chunks)
    if (!isValid(rawBody, req.headers['x-ideabucket-signature'])) {
      res.writeHead(401).end()
      return
    }
    const payload = JSON.parse(rawBody.toString('utf8'))
    console.log(payload.event, payload.idea.content)
    res.writeHead(204).end()
  })
}).listen(3000)

With Express, use express.raw({ type: 'application/json' }) on the route, so req.body is the raw Buffer, and pass it to isValid.

#Web Crypto

For Cloudflare Workers, Deno, Bun and other runtimes with Web Crypto:

async function isValid(secret, rawBody, header) {
  const match = /^sha256=([0-9a-f]{64})$/.exec(header ?? '')
  if (!match) return false
  const enc = new TextEncoder()
  const key = await crypto.subtle.importKey(
    'raw',
    enc.encode(secret),
    { name: 'HMAC', hash: 'SHA-256' },
    false,
    ['verify'],
  )
  const signature = new Uint8Array(match[1].match(/../g).map(h => parseInt(h, 16)))
  // crypto.subtle.verify compares in constant time.
  return crypto.subtle.verify('HMAC', key, signature, enc.encode(rawBody))
}

export default {
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const rawBody = await request.text()
    const ok = await isValid(
      env.IDEABUCKET_SIGNING_SECRET,
      rawBody,
      request.headers.get('x-ideabucket-signature'),
    )
    if (!ok) return new Response('Bad signature', { status: 401 })
    const payload = JSON.parse(rawBody)
    // … do something with payload.idea
    return new Response(null, { status: 204 })
  },
}

#Recent runs

Each time a rule fires, it creates a run. Recent runs on the Automations screen shows your latest 20 runs, with any runs waiting for you at the top. Each run shows the rule, the start of the idea, how long ago it ran and its status:

Reasons a run is Skipped:

• Idea is in the trash
• Rule is turned off: the rule was off by the time the run started.
• Already archived
• No change: the tags were already as the rule wanted.
• Not sent: you chose Not now on a Grok Bot dispatch.
• Expired: nobody chose Send or Not now on a Grok Bot dispatch within 14 days.

Retry runs a failed run again straight away. It counts towards your hourly limits like any other run.

#Limits

A run counts towards the hourly limits when it reaches its action, including runs that fail there. Skipped runs and Grok Bot runs waiting for your approval don't count. The Grok Bot Test button counts as one run.

#Failure messages

These are the messages a Failed run can show, and what to do about each.