---
name: automations-adjust
description: "Adjust an existing Introspection automation after seeing how it does: run it less often when its runs mostly find nothing, more often when it misses things, change its prompt, or pause or resume it. Agree each change with the person first; never delete one. Follows automations-schedule and automations-respond."
metadata:
  min-cli-version: "0.73.0"
---

# Automations: adjust

Tune an automation that already exists, from what its runs have shown.

## Before you start

- **Find the automation:** `introspection automations list --query "[].[id, name, enabled]"`. If more than one could match the request, ask which.
- **Read how it has done.** Each run is a task carrying the automation's id, and a run that found nothing is marked `no_reply`: `introspection tasks list --query "[?automation_id=='<id>'].[id, created_at, metadata.automation_run.outcome]"`. Read the last few results that weren't quiet before proposing a change.

## Steps

1. **Propose a change from what its runs showed,** and agree it with the person:
   - **too often:** most runs end `no_reply`, or report the same thing again. Run it less often (hourly to daily, daily to weekly), or pause it, saying how many of its recent runs found nothing;
   - **too rarely:** something it should have caught waited for its next run. Run it more often, or narrow its prompt to what matters;
   - **reporting the wrong things:** its reports aren't acted on. Narrow the prompt to what the reader acts on.
2. **Change it** with `introspection automations update <id>`: its prompt, schedule or timezone, or `--disable` to pause and `--enable` to resume. A project's default automations can only be paused, not deleted.
3. **Read it back** (`introspection automations get <id>`) and tell the person what changed and when it next runs.

## Guardrails

- **The person decides** an automation's schedule and prompt; you propose them.
- **Never delete an automation:** pause it.

## Done when

- The automation is as agreed, and the person knows when it next runs.