When an automation runs and where its result lands
The schedule kinds, what a run may do, and the message it leaves.
An automation runs on demand or on a schedule, at the wall-clock time in your own time zone, and its result lands in your chat as a message from the operator. A run that finds nothing to report leaves nothing.
The schedule kinds
On demand. No clock. It runs when you start it: Run now on its page or in its row's menu, or an @-mention in any chat. The default for a new automation.
Daily, at a time.
Weekly, on the days you choose.
Monthly, on a day of the month, the last day included.
Yearly.
Every so many minutes. Every 30 minutes up to once a day, in steps of 30. The runs sit on the clock counted from midnight: every 30 minutes is on the hour and the half hour, every 90 minutes is 00:00, 01:30, 03:00 and so on. The first run is the next point after you save: saved at 11:21, it runs at 11:30. Nothing runs more often than every 30 minutes.
After completion, for an automation that creates a task. The next task is created a set time after you complete the previous one, counted from the check-off rather than the calendar.
The time is yours wherever you are: 8 am stays 8 am after a move to another time zone.
What a run is
A run is the operator working without you in the room: the same operator, with the automation's steps as its instructions, writing into a transcript you can read afterwards on the automation's page. It runs on Roma's side, so your Mac can be shut. It remembers the run before it, when that run started, how it ended and what it wrote, so "since last time" and "anything new" in your steps mean something. A run has up to 16 tool steps and four minutes, ten when it uses the browser. A missed occurrence is skipped, never run late.
A run reads your connected apps and the web, and inside Roma it reads your lists and creates or updates items. It never deletes, never moves an item, never sends a mail and never writes into another app (the one standing exception is the senders you asked Mail check to archive from now on, archived in Gmail each morning), and it takes no approvals, because nobody is there to answer. The operator's browser, in beta, is read only on public pages, and when a site wants you the run hands over: a card lands in your chat, you finish in the browser, and the run picks up where it stopped. The row reads Waiting for you meanwhile, and the wait expires after 15 minutes. What an automation is has the two shapes a run can take.
Where the result lands
Your chat. The run's closing message lands in your main conversation as the operator's own message, one per run, with a heading per section and one line per item. A fixed action reads "Added the task Water the plants." with the task as a link. A quiet run lands no message and no push.
A push. A result or a failure reaches your iPhone as a push titled by the automation and your Mac as a banner, under the Automations switch in Settings → Notifications. If you are looking at the chat when it lands, no push follows. The browser outside the Mac app has no push.
The automation's page. Every run, with when it ran, how it ended, what it wrote and the line it left, the quiet ones included, so you can see a run happened even when it said nothing. Press a run to read its transcript. Type into a run's chat to change the next one: "Next time, don't: include the weekend."
A run never lands in Updates. A run is the operator talking, so it stays in the chat, and Updates holds what other people did and what Roma prepared on your tasks.
When a run fails
A run that fails three times in a row pauses the automation, the delivered line says so, and Resume clears the count. A connection that has expired is reported as such: "This run couldn't reach Gmail, which needs reconnecting in Settings." A run that stalls is settled as failed after 20 minutes and counts the same way. Run now while a run is already in flight is refused in a sentence, and a draft cannot run until it is saved.
Limits
Up to 25 automations with steps switched on per account, and 200 of their runs per day. A fixed action is one write and counts toward neither.
Questions people ask
Why did I get no message from last night's run?
Because it had nothing to report. A run that writes nothing and finds nothing lands no message and no push. Its row on the automation's page says it ran. A run that reported would be in your chat, and never in Updates, since runs do not land there.
Why did the Morning briefing stop while I was away?
A Morning briefing you have not set up yet skips its mornings after seven days without you opening your chat, and runs again the morning after you come back. Every other automation keeps its schedule while you are away.
Can I see what a run did?
Yes. The automation's page lists every run with when it ran, how it ended and what it wrote, and a run's transcript shows each step and each tool it used. The record of what a run created or updated comes from the tools it called, not from its own account of itself.
Does an automation run in my time zone?
Yes. A schedule is a wall-clock time in your current time zone, and the automations Roma started for you follow you too, so a 07:00 briefing stays at 07:00 after a move.