Task vs workflow vs trigger
Three terms that get tangled. Here’s the cleanest way to remember them:
- A trigger is the event that starts an automated run — a schedule firing, a webhook arriving, a file uploading.
- A task is one agent running in response to a trigger. Most commonly, on a schedule.
- A workflow is a multi-step chain of triggers, agents, and integrations, wired together on a canvas.
If only one agent is involved, it’s a task. If many agents (or non-agent steps like “post to Slack”, “write to spreadsheet”) are involved in a chain, it’s a workflow. The trigger sits at the start of both.
Trigger
A trigger is the rule for when something runs. Triggers come in a few shapes:
- Manual — runs when someone clicks Execute. Mostly used for testing.
- Schedule — runs at a time (every day at 8 AM, every Monday, on the 1st of the month, or any cron expression).
- Webhook — runs when an HTTP POST hits a specific URL. Used to wire in Zapier, GitHub, custom integrations.
- Email received — runs when an email lands in an agent’s inbox.
- File uploaded — runs when a user adds a file to a watched folder.
Every task and every workflow starts with exactly one trigger.
Task
A task = a trigger + one agent + a prompt.
You set it up in Automation → Schedules (or directly from an agent’s Triggers tab). You pick the agent, write the prompt, and choose a trigger (usually a schedule). When the trigger fires, TeamMate runs the agent with the prompt. The reply is captured in the execution log and optionally delivered to email / Slack / Teams.
The Daily Sales Summary in Tutorial 6 is a task: one trigger (every weekday at 9 AM), one agent (Hashim), one prompt (“summarise yesterday’s pipeline activity”), one output (email to the sales lead).
Workflow
A workflow = a trigger + a chain of agents and other steps + outputs.
You set it up in Automation → Flows, dragging nodes onto a canvas. Beyond agents, the node catalogue includes:
- HTTP request — call an external API.
- Send email / Slack / Teams message — push the result somewhere.
- Write to spreadsheet — log structured rows.
- Conditional branch — different paths depending on a value.
- Wait / delay — pause before the next step.
Workflows are best when the work is too complex for one agent — multiple specialists involved, deterministic order, external systems in the loop.
The SDR Workflow in Guides → Sales is a workflow: trigger on inbound email, qualify lead with one agent, look up CRM data with another, draft reply with a third, post for human approval, send.
How to pick between them
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| ”I want my HR Assistant to send a daily reminder at 9 AM” | Task |
| ”I want our pipeline summarised every Monday morning” | Task |
| ”I want inbound emails triaged, replied to, and logged to a CRM” | Workflow |
| ”I want a multi-step approval chain across 3 agents and Slack” | Workflow |
| ”I’m not sure — it’s just one agent doing one thing” | Task |
| ”It’s more than one step and order matters” | Workflow |
If you start with a task and grow it into something multi-step, you can rebuild it as a workflow without losing your prompts.
Where they live in the UI
- Sidebar → Automation is the home for both.
- The Flows tab lists workflows.
- The Schedules tab lists tasks.
- The Triggers tab on an agent shows everything that runs that agent without a user.
Related reading
- Your first scheduled task — the task tutorial.
- Your first workflow — the workflow tutorial.
- Triggers reference — every trigger type explained.