Autonomous Agents

"Autonomous" agents run without a human in the loop for every step.

Taskade provides three building blocks: automations, Agent Teams, and cross-agent invocation.

This guide explains how to combine these building blocks.

Table of Contents

• The Three Building Blocks
• Pattern: Scheduled Agent Task
• Pattern: Event-Triggered Agent
• Pattern: Multi-Agent Team
• Pattern: Self-Invoking Chain
• Monitoring and Observability
• Plan Gating
• Related

The Three Building Blocks

All three are composable. Real systems often combine two of them.

Pattern: Scheduled Agent Task

A time-based trigger fires an automation that prompts an agent and routes the output somewhere.

Build it

1. In the Automation builder, add a Schedule trigger.
2. Select a daily, weekly, or cron schedule.
3. Add an Ask Agent action.
4. Select your agent.
5. In the prompt, reference trigger data with variables such as {{run.date}}.
6. Add an output action, such as Slack, email, or create task.

Pattern: Event-Triggered Agent

An external event (webhook, form submission, task completion) fires an agent-driven flow.

Example: customer feedback triage

1. Configure a webhook trigger to receive the form submission.
2. Configure an agent to classify sentiment and extract key topics.
3. Configure the flow with these routes:
   • Negative + urgent → create a support ticket.
   • Feature request → append to the feedback project.
   • Positive → thank-you email automation.

Pattern: Multi-Agent Team

A coordinator agent delegates work to specialist agents. Each specialist has its own knowledge, tools, and persona.

Execution modes

An Ask Agent Team automation step exposes an Execution Mode with three options:

• Auto: the coordinator picks which specialist to delegate to, based on the task.
• Everyone: every specialist responds. The coordinator synthesizes the responses.
• Orchestrate: the coordinator runs a structured handoff plan.

Agent App tools are not supported in this step. A tool that requires manual approval fails the run.

Programmatic use

// Your app prompts the coordinator; the team resolves internally
const res = await fetch("https://www.taskade.com/api/v2/promptAgent", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TASKADE_TOKEN}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    spaceId: SPACE_ID,
    agentId: COORDINATOR_ID,
    prompt: "Produce a blog post on our Q2 launch, ready to publish.",
  }),
});
const { summary } = await res.json();

Pattern: Self-Invoking Chain

An agent reaches another agent through a flow. Taskade has no agent-as-a-tool type.

Bind a manual-trigger automation to the coordinator agent. Put an Ask Agent step in that flow, pointed at the specialist.

// Agent A holds a manual-trigger tool bound to a flow.
// That flow runs an "Ask Agent" step against Agent B.
// Your app only talks to Agent A.

const res = await fetch("https://www.taskade.com/api/v2/promptAgent", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.TASKADE_TOKEN}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    spaceId: SPACE_ID,
    agentId: AGENT_A_ID,
    prompt: "Research the latest on X and draft a blog outline",
  }),
});
const { summary } = await res.json();

// What happens:
//   Agent A (coordinator) → triggers its bound flow
//   The flow's "Ask Agent" step prompts Agent B (researcher)
//   Agent B returns findings → Agent A writes the outline
//   A single response returns to your app

Cross-agent invocation moves orchestration into Taskade. Your app sends one request, and the flow layer handles the delegation.

Monitoring and Observability

Per-run details

The Run Details tab shows this information for each automation run:

• Step-by-step execution log
• Inputs and outputs per step
• Errors with context
• Agent credits consumed

Usage analytics

• Per-agent usage analytics — see which agents consume the most credits
• Workspace activity log — credit pack purchases, configuration changes
• Automation status badges — quick visual indicator of health

Errors without retries

Taskade's automation engine distinguishes transient from permanent errors.

• Transient (timeouts, 5xx) — auto-retried with backoff.
• Permanent (invalid credentials, 400 errors) — Stop without a retry and send a notification.

This prevents runaway credit spend on a broken connection.

Plan Gating

Plan gating changes between releases. See pricing for the authoritative matrix.

Related

→ Action API Guide

→ SDK Cookbook

→ Long-Term Memory

→ AI Agents in Learn Taskade

→ Automations