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Automation Modes

June 2, 2026 by
Automation Modes
渥屋科技股份有限公司, 系統管理者
Run Modes: Handling Overlapping Triggers

Run Modes: Handling Overlapping Triggers

Now and then an automation gets nudged again while it's still busy with a previous run. The mode setting decides how WoowTech reacts to that overlap — whether it brushes off the new trigger, scraps the current run and begins anew, lines the request up behind whatever's already going, or spins up a separate copy side by side.

For the vast majority of automations the built-in single mode is the right call. The alternatives exist for niche situations — say a notifier that should fire a brand-new copy for every incoming event, or a lengthy routine that ought to start over from the top each time something nudges it.

Mode What it does
single The default. Refuses to launch a second run while one is active, and logs a warning.
restart Kills the in-flight run, then starts a fresh one — but only when the conditions still hold.
queued Holds the new run until earlier ones finish, executing them strictly in arrival order. A queued run only joins the line if its own conditions are satisfied at trigger time.
parallel Spins up a separate, independent run that proceeds alongside the others.

With queued and parallel, the max option caps how many runs may be active or waiting at once. If you don't set it, the ceiling is 10.

Crossing that ceiling (effectively 1 in single mode) writes a log entry to flag the overflow. The max_exceeded option sets how loud that entry is: choose silent to suppress it entirely, or name any log level. It defaults to warning.

Throttling an Automation to Once Every Few Minutes

Suppose you only want an automation to act at most once every ten minutes. Pair single mode with a trailing delay, and mute the overflow warnings so the log stays clean while the run is still ticking.

automation:
  - mode: single
    max_exceeded: silent
    triggers:
      - ...
    actions:
      - ...
      - delay: 600  # seconds (= 10 minutes)

Serializing Runs with a Queue

When an automation drives a device that can't cope with two commands at the same moment, queue the runs. Each new run then waits its turn, kicking off only after the current run and everything ahead of it in the line have wrapped up.

automation:
  - mode: queued
    max: 15
    triggers:
      - ...
    actions:
      - ...

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