Automations Overview - OpenHands Docs

Automations let you schedule AI-powered tasks that run automatically—daily reports, health checks, data syncs, and more. Each automation runs a full OpenHands conversation on your chosen schedule, with access to your LLM settings, stored secrets, and integrations. Your git provider credentials are automatically available—if you logged into OpenHands with GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket, that access is included by default.

What Can Automations Do?

Generate reports: Daily standups, weekly summaries, or monthly metrics
Monitor systems: Check API health, SSL certificates, or uptime
Sync data: Pull from external APIs, update spreadsheets, or refresh dashboards
Maintain code: Run dependency checks, security scans, or cleanup tasks
Send notifications: Post updates to Slack, create GitHub issues, or send alerts

Automations can only interact with services you’ve configured access to. For example, posting to Slack requires the Slack MCP integration. Git providers you logged in with (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket) are automatically available.

Two Types of Automations

When you ask OpenHands to create an automation, you can choose between:

Prompt-based (most common): Describe what the automation should do in natural language. Great for reports, monitoring, data syncs, and most tasks.
Plugin-based: Include one or more plugins that provide additional skills or capabilities. Use this when you need specialized tools from the OpenHands extensions repository.

Both types are created the same way—just describe what you want and OpenHands will guide you through the setup.

Creating Your First Automation

Just ask OpenHands to create one:

Create an automation that runs every Monday at 9 AM and summarizes 
our open GitHub issues, then posts the summary to #engineering on Slack.

For plugin-based automations, mention the plugin:

Create an automation using the code-review plugin that runs daily 
and reviews any Python files changed in the last 24 hours.

The Automation Skill guides you through:

Naming your automation
Setting the schedule
Choosing a timezone
Confirming the task description (and plugins, if any)

That’s it—the system handles the rest.

How It Works

When your automation runs:

A fresh sandbox is created
The OpenHands agent executes your prompt
The conversation is saved so you can review it later
You can even continue the conversation if needed

Automations are user-scoped—each automation and its runs belong to you. Conversations created by your automations automatically appear in your conversations list, just like any other conversation you start. Your automation has access to everything a normal OpenHands conversation does: terminal, file editing, your configured LLM, stored secrets, and MCP integrations. Git provider tokens from your login (GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket) are automatically included.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Configured LLM in your settings
Stored secrets (optional) for any additional API keys your automations need (e.g., Slack tokens)

Open a new conversation in OpenHands and ask it to create an automation:

Create an automation that runs every Monday at 9 AM and summarizes 
our open GitHub issues, then posts to #engineering on Slack.

Once you create an automation, you can view them by clicking on the “Automations” icon on the left-hand navigation. You can also ask OpenHands to list existing automations, enable/disable them, or trigger manual runs.

Use Case Automations

Each use case has a ready-to-use automation prompt. Click a card to see the full instructions.

Automated Code Review

Review open PRs daily for bugs, style issues, and security concerns.

Dependency Upgrades

Check for outdated packages weekly and report available updates.

Incident Triage

Monitor API health, analyze errors, and alert your team automatically.

Automated QA Testing

Functionally test PR changes by exercising the software as a real user would.

Vulnerability Remediation

Scan dependencies for known CVEs, find hardcoded secrets, and alert your team on a schedule.

General Automations

Ready-to-use templates for common operational tasks.

Daily GitHub Summary

Summarize PRs opened, merged, and reviewed daily.

Weekly Metrics Report

Generate weekly GitHub activity and issue reports.

SSL Certificate Monitor

Check SSL expiry dates and alert before they lapse.

Weekly Cleanup

Remove stale temporary files and report what was cleaned.

Backup Verification

Verify database backups exist and are recent.

Analytics Data Sync

Pull analytics data periodically and flag big changes.

Daily GitHub Summary

Create an automation called "Daily GitHub Summary" that runs every weekday at 9 AM Eastern.

It should:
1. Summarize PRs opened, merged, and reviewed in the last 24 hours
2. List any PRs that have been open for more than 3 days
3. Format as a clean markdown summary
4. Post to the #engineering Slack channel

Weekly Metrics Report

Create an automation called "Weekly Metrics" that runs every Monday at 9 AM.

It should generate a weekly report covering:
- GitHub activity (commits, PRs merged, issues closed)
- Open issues grouped by priority
- PRs awaiting review for more than 3 days

Save the report to weekly-reports/ with the current date in the filename.

SSL Certificate Monitor

Create an automation called "SSL Monitor" that runs daily at 8 AM.

It should check SSL certificate expiry for these domains:
- api.example.com
- app.example.com
- www.example.com

If any certificate expires within 30 days, alert #devops with the domain and days remaining.

Weekly Cleanup

Create an automation called "Weekly Cleanup" that runs every Sunday at 2 AM UTC.

It should:
1. Find and delete temporary files older than 7 days
2. Create a summary of what was removed (file paths and sizes)
3. Post the cleanup summary to #ops

Backup Verification

Create an automation called "Backup Check" that runs daily at 6 AM.

It should verify that database backups exist and were created within the last 24 hours.
List the most recent backup for each database with its timestamp and size.
If any backup is missing or stale, send an urgent alert to #alerts.

Analytics Data Sync

Create an automation called "Analytics Sync" that runs every 6 hours.

It should:
1. Pull the latest data from our analytics API
2. Update metrics.json with the new data
3. Calculate week-over-week changes for key metrics
4. If any metric changed by more than 20%, flag it in a summary message

Tips for Writing Good Prompts

Be specific about actions

Tell the automation exactly what to do:

“Check X and if Y, then Z”
“Generate a report and save it to…”
“Fetch data, compare with expected values, and report differences”

Include error handling

Specify what should happen when things go wrong:

“If the response is not 200…”
“If any backup is missing…”
“If the check fails, alert the team”

Define where results go

Be explicit about outputs:

“Post to the #channel Slack channel”
“Save to reports/ with the current date”
“Create a GitHub issue with the findings”

Next Steps

Creating Automations — More details on writing prompts
Managing Automations — Update, disable, or delete automations
Use Cases Overview — Explore the full use case guides behind these automations

​What Can Automations Do?

​Two Types of Automations

​Creating Your First Automation

​How It Works

​Getting Started

​Use Case Automations

Automated Code Review

Dependency Upgrades

Incident Triage

Automated QA Testing

Vulnerability Remediation

​General Automations

Daily GitHub Summary

Weekly Metrics Report

SSL Certificate Monitor

Weekly Cleanup

Backup Verification

Analytics Data Sync

​Daily GitHub Summary

​Weekly Metrics Report

​SSL Certificate Monitor

​Weekly Cleanup

​Backup Verification

​Analytics Data Sync

​Tips for Writing Good Prompts

​Next Steps

What Can Automations Do?

Two Types of Automations

Creating Your First Automation

How It Works

Getting Started

Use Case Automations

General Automations

Daily GitHub Summary

Weekly Metrics Report

SSL Certificate Monitor

Weekly Cleanup

Backup Verification

Analytics Data Sync

Tips for Writing Good Prompts

Next Steps