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description Build agents that run without per-request prompting. Automations, multi-agent orchestration, cross-agent invocation, and Autopilot patterns, unified.

Autonomous Agents

"Autonomous" in Taskade means agents that run without a human in the loop for every step. You have four building blocks to compose these systems: Automations, Orchestration Mode, Cross-Agent Invocation, and Autopilot.

This page is a developer's guide to combining those primitives.

Table of Contents

The Four Building Blocks

Primitive What it does When to use
Automations Trigger-driven workflows (schedule, webhook, form, event) Most "do this when that happens" use cases
Orchestration Mode (Agent Teams) Coordinator agent delegates to specialist agents Multi-step tasks needing distinct expertise
Cross-Agent Invocation An agent calls another agent as a tool Specialist pipelines without your app orchestrating
Autopilot AI-driven execution that self-plans and self-corrects Open-ended exploratory tasks

All four are composable. Real systems often combine two or three.

Pattern: Scheduled Agent Task

A time-based trigger fires an automation that prompts an agent and routes the output somewhere.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Cron as Cron Trigger
    participant Flow as Automation Flow
    participant Agent as AI Agent
    participant Output as Output<br/>(Slack / Email / Project)

    Cron->>Flow: Fire daily at 09:00
    Flow->>Agent: Prompt: "Summarize new customer signups"
    Agent->>Flow: Generated summary
    Flow->>Output: Post to #growth channel
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Build it

  1. In the Automation builder, add a Schedule trigger (daily, weekly, cron).
  2. Add an Ask Agent action and pick your agent.
  3. In the prompt, reference trigger data via variables ({{run.date}}).
  4. Add an output action (Slack, email, create task).

Pattern: Event-Triggered Agent

An external event (webhook, form submission, task completion) fires an agent-driven flow.

sequenceDiagram
    participant External as External Service
    participant Trigger as Taskade Trigger<br/>(Webhook / Form / Mail)
    participant Flow as Automation Flow
    participant Agent as AI Agent
    participant Action as Downstream Action

    External->>Trigger: Event occurs
    Trigger->>Flow: Fire automation
    Flow->>Agent: Prompt with event context
    Agent->>Flow: Response or decision
    Flow->>Action: Execute action with agent output
    Action->>External: Side effect
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Example: customer feedback triage

  1. Webhook trigger receives inbound form submission.
  2. Agent classifies sentiment and extracts key topics.
  3. Flow routes:
    • Negative + urgent → create a support ticket.
    • Feature request → append to the feedback project.
    • Positive → thank-you email automation.

Pattern: Multi-Agent Team

A coordinator agent delegates work to specialist agents. Each specialist has its own knowledge, tools, and persona.

graph TB
    User[User prompt] --> Coordinator[Coordinator Agent]
    Coordinator --> Researcher[Researcher Agent<br/>web search, RSS]
    Coordinator --> Writer[Writer Agent<br/>drafting tools]
    Coordinator --> Editor[Editor Agent<br/>style guide]
    Researcher --> Coordinator
    Writer --> Coordinator
    Editor --> Coordinator
    Coordinator --> Output[Final output]
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Orchestration modes

  • Auto — Coordinator picks which specialist to delegate to based on the task.
  • Everyone — Every specialist responds; coordinator synthesizes.
  • Orchestrate — Coordinator runs a structured handoff plan.

Programmatic use

// Your app prompts the coordinator; the team resolves internally
const result = await taskade.agents.prompt(COORDINATOR_ID, {
  message: "Produce a blog post on our Q2 launch, ready to publish.",
});

Pattern: Self-Invoking Chain

An agent can call another agent as a tool. This lets specialist pipelines run without your app orchestrating each step.

// Agent A is configured with Agent B as a tool.
// Your app only talks to Agent A.

const result = await taskade.agents.prompt(AGENT_A_ID, {
  message: "Research the latest on X and draft a blog outline",
});

// Under the hood:
//   Agent A (coordinator) → calls Agent B (researcher) as a tool
//   Agent B returns findings → Agent A writes the outline
//   A single response returns to your app

Cross-agent invocation shifts orchestration inside Taskade. Your app stays simple; agents handle the delegation.

Monitoring and Observability

Per-run details

Every automation run has a Run Details tab showing:

  • Step-by-step execution log
  • Inputs and outputs per step
  • Errors with context
  • Agent credits consumed

Usage analytics

  • Per-agent usage analytics — see which agents consume the most credits
  • Workspace activity log — credit pack purchases, configuration changes
  • Automation status badges — quick visual indicator of health

Errors that don't retry

Taskade's automation engine distinguishes transient from permanent errors.

  • Transient (timeouts, 5xx) — auto-retried with backoff.
  • Permanent (invalid credentials, 400 errors) — fail fast, no retry, notification raised.

This prevents runaway credit spend on a broken connection.

Plan Gating

Feature Free Pro Business+
Automations (basic triggers + actions) Limited ✓ ✓
Multi-agent teams — Limited ✓
Cross-agent invocation — ✓ ✓
Autopilot — ✓ ✓
Hosted MCP v2 (outbound connectors) — — ✓

{% hint style="info" %} See pricing for the authoritative gating per plan. {% endhint %}

Related

{% content-ref url="api-v2-reference.md" %} api-v2-reference.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="sdk-cookbook.md" %} sdk-cookbook.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="long-term-memory.md" %} long-term-memory.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="../genesis-living-system-builder/ai-features/multi-agents.md" %} multi-agents.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="../genesis-living-system-builder/ai-features/autopilot.md" %} autopilot.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="../genesis-living-system-builder/automation/README.md" %} README.md {% endcontent-ref %}