Routines and webhooks
Run agents on a schedule, collect their reports in one thread, or trigger work from an external event.
Routines
A routine runs once, at a repeating interval, or on selected weekdays. Each run starts a fresh execution using the selected bot's model, permissions, tools, and computer configuration.
Run receipts distinguish queued, active, waiting, completed, missed, failed, and cancelled work. MengBot must be running when a local routine becomes due.
Results arrive in the bot's chat
Each run works in a conversation of its own, out of the way, and only its result comes to the bot's chat: one message from the bot, with a small line above it naming the automation and when it ran. Reply to it like any other message; the bot knows what its automation found. A run with nothing to tell you stays quiet: no message, no unread dot, no notification, and the automation's card says Nothing new.
When a run needs you, it asks in that chat. A question in words shows needs you on the message; answer it there, or react 👍 or 👎. A choice or an approval the run waits on appears in the chat too, and answering it there, or reacting 👍 or 👎, carries the run on. A sign-in, a connection or a key it needs is named in the chat, with See run to it. When a run can't finish, the chat says so once, with what to fix.
Nothing lands in the middle of your own conversation: if you are chatting with the bot when a run finishes, its message waits and appears right after the bot's reply to you.
Files a run links in its message open from the chat, just as they would in the run's own conversation. Use See run on a message for the run's full conversation, then Back to results to return. Run logs keeps the execution history, including failures and waiting runs. Background run conversations stay out of the normal sidebar and mobile thread pickers.
In a routine's editor, use Post results to to choose an existing thread, or leave it on The bot's main thread: the conversation you last wrote in, which is also the one conversation you see with threads hidden. You can move a results thread into a folder, such as OMB management, just like any other thread. On My Cloud, an automation that an outside event starts, or that someone else wrote, reports into a chat of its own, so the chats you write in stay yours alone and can keep using a Mac you lend to My Cloud.
A bot schedules, changes, pauses, resumes, and deletes its own routines from chat without asking, and each change shows as one line with Undo (see Changes a bot makes). A routine for another bot asks first unless the conversation has Full access.
Without a chosen thread, each run reports into the bot's main thread as it is when the run starts, wherever the routine was made, so results follow you to the conversation you are in. Changing the destination affects future runs, not the messages older runs left. If you delete a results thread, its hidden execution threads become visible so you can still inspect their work and respond to approvals.
Remember the last run
Each run starts fresh by default. For work that builds on last time, such as a QA pass, monitoring or follow-ups, turn on Remember the last run under the routine's instructions. Each run then starts with the previous run's report (up to 2,000 characters), so the bot knows what it found before. It is available for repeating routines that one bot runs; team goals don't carry it yet. You can also ask the bot in chat to turn it on.
Run when the app starts
If your computer is often off when a routine is due, open the routine's Advanced options and turn on Also run when MengBot starts. The routine then runs once each time MengBot opens, as well as on its schedule. Its run logs show these runs as On startup. A routine that MengBot is already catching up on at startup runs once, not twice, and an occurrence missed by more than 12 hours is covered by the startup run instead of being reported as missed. Switching to another workspace and back, or MengBot recovering from a crash, doesn't count as opening the app again. Pausing a routine stops its startup runs too. It's available for repeating routines, and you can also ask the bot in chat to turn it on.
Clear a folder's unread dots
Right-click a folder or open its … menu, then choose Mark folder as read. This clears unread dots without opening each thread. It does not answer approvals, dismiss questions, or stop any running work.
Webhook triggers
Webhooks start the same queued task executor from an external HTTP request. They are independent from schedules and use a dedicated receiver on 127.0.0.1:8800 by default.
The receiver exposes only health and secret hook routes. It does not expose the broader MengBot API.
Bearer authentication is preferred because it keeps the secret out of URLs and most access logs. A capability URL is available for senders that cannot set headers.
A bot that sets up its own webhook
When a bot creates a webhook automation from chat, it gets the private address in the result, and it can ask for it again later, so it can paste the address into the other app's setup itself instead of asking you to use Copy address. Only the bot the automation belongs to gets it, or a Chief of Staff that can reach that bot (bots with a different audience on a shared workspace cannot), and only in a conversation you drive: never in a run that a webhook or app event started, and never in a My Cloud conversation a guest drives. The address stays in that tool result; chat transcripts, step details and logs show it masked, and the Automations page keeps the secret hidden until you press Show. Copy address copies the same address the bot has, so copying never breaks a setup; Replace address makes a new one and the old one stops working.
Reaching a local webhook
On My Cloud there is nothing to set up: webhooks use the workspace's own address. The Webhooks panel shows https:// plus the workspace's hostname followed by /hooks/ and the endpoint, and only those hook paths are passed to the receiver. The same is true of a hosted workspace.
On the desktop app the receiver listens only on this computer. To accept events from the public internet, proxy only the webhook receiver through a narrowly configured relay or tunnel. Do not expose the main harness port.
MengBot must remain running
Local routines and webhook deliveries are not hosted jobs. Closing the desktop app stops the local executor and receiver. My Cloud keeps running them while your computer is off.