Triggers — start bots by themselves

Until now you started every bot yourself: open the file, click “Start”. Triggers take that off your hands. A trigger is a rule “when X happens, then start bot Y” — and the trigger service inside FlowBotCommander watches over it in the background.

What can fire a trigger

Step 1 — Save the bot

A trigger can only start a saved bot. Save it with File → Save — ideally into the bot folder the wizard shows by itself (%AppData%\FlowBotCommander\bots). Any other .bot.json works too; then pick it in the wizard via “Browse…”.

Step 2 — Open the wizard

Tools → Triggers… (beta), then “New trigger…”. The wizard has four steps:

1. Which bot? — pick the saved bot; a trigger name is suggested.
2. When should it start? — one of the six kinds from the table above.
3. Details — depending on the kind: times, key, window title, folder …
4. Summary — the wizard checks everything and tells you what is missing. “Finish” creates the trigger.

Top right is the switch Beginner / Advanced. As a beginner you only see what you need. Advanced adds weekdays, conditions (see below) and the finer points of webhooks and files. Values are kept when you switch.

Step 3 — Switch on the service

In the trigger window (or under Tools → Settings → Trigger service) tick “Run the trigger service while the app is open”. The status line changes to “Service: running”. Without this tick no trigger fires — on purpose, so nothing you did not switch on can ever surprise you.

To make that the normal case there is the second tick: “Start FlowBotCommander with Windows (minimized)”. The app then starts in the background at login and the triggers are armed right away.

The kinds in detail

Schedule

• Daily at fixed times — several times separated by commas: 07:30, 20:00.
• Every N minutes — the first start comes one interval after switching on, not immediately.
• Once — a date with a time; afterwards the trigger is done (it stays in the list but no longer fires).
• Weekdays (advanced) — no tick means “every day”.

The list in the trigger window shows the next planned start.

Hotkey

Click “Press key…”, then press the key (with Ctrl/Alt/Shift if you like). “Is it free?” checks whether another program already holds the combination — the wizard tells you instead of silently doing nothing.

As a beginner a hotkey trigger automatically gets a 2-second cooldown, so a double press does not start the bot twice.

Web call (webhook)

The trigger gets a name, for example evening-farm, and with it an address:

http://127.0.0.1:8766/hook/evening-farm?token=YOUR-TOKEN

The token is in the trigger window under “Webhook receiver (advanced)” — with a “Copy” button. Open the address (browser bookmark, curl, Stream Deck “open website”, Home Assistant rest_command) and the bot starts. Instead of ?token= the header Authorization: Bearer YOUR-TOKEN works as well.

The receiver is switched on for you when you create the first webhook trigger. By default it only listens on this computer. If your phone should fire it, tick “Reachable from other devices in my network” in the trigger window and use your computer's IP instead of 127.0.0.1 (the window shows an example).

Window appears

Enter the window title or pick it with “Pick window…” from the list of open windows. The trigger fires when a matching window newly shows up — not for a window that was already open when you switched on. Advanced: untick “Fire again each time the window reappears” if it should happen only once per session.

File changes

Choose the folder, a file pattern (*.png, *.log, *.*) and whether “created”, “changed” or both count. A burst of changes (Windows likes to report several while copying) is merged into one firing. Advanced: include subfolders.

App start

Nothing to set up. The bot starts shortly after the app is up, once the tabs are in place.

Conditions (advanced)

Every trigger can have conditions that are checked before each start:

• If a bot is already running — “skip” (default) or “wait, then start”. Two bots at once would fight over mouse and keyboard; that is why a trigger never starts into a running bot.
• Cooldown — seconds that must pass between two starts.
• Only if this window is open — for example only while the game is running.
• Time window — only between 22:00 and 06:00 (may cross midnight).

What a trigger decided is written to the bot's log and to the log file — with the reason: “started (schedule 20:00)”, “skipped — a bot is already running”, “outside the time window” …

Test without waiting

Select the trigger in the trigger window and press “Fire now”. That bypasses schedule, time window and cooldown — but not a bot that is running right now. Within seconds you see whether the right bot starts in the right tab.

When it does not work

• “Service: off” in the status line — the tick “Run the trigger service” is missing.
• Hotkey does nothing — the window reports “hotkeys taken by another program” at the bottom. Choose a different combination.
• Webhook does not answer — expand “Webhook receiver”: is it running? Port taken? From a phone you need the network tick and the computer's IP.
• Bot starts but does the wrong thing — the trigger loads exactly the saved file. Changes in the editor must be saved.
• “could not start” — the bot file is gone or moved; pick it again in the wizard.

Read on

• Control API — when a script or an AI should do more than just start
• Notifications — get a message when a bot started by a trigger has finished