Autonomous Agents

June 5, 2026 · View on GitHub

"Autonomous" in Taskade means agents that run without a human in the loop for every step. You have four building blocks to compose these systems: Automations, Orchestration Mode, Cross-Agent Invocation, and Autopilot.

This page is a developer's guide to combining those primitives.

The Four 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 Four Building Blocks

Primitive	What it does	When to use
Automations	Trigger-driven workflows (schedule, webhook, form, event)	Most "do this when that happens" use cases
Orchestration Mode (Agent Teams)	Coordinator agent delegates to specialist agents	Multi-step tasks needing distinct expertise
Cross-Agent Invocation	An agent calls another agent as a tool	Specialist pipelines without your app orchestrating
Autopilot	AI-driven execution that self-plans and self-corrects	Open-ended exploratory tasks

All four are composable. Real systems often combine two or three.

Pattern: Scheduled Agent Task

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

sequenceDiagram
    participant Cron as Cron Trigger
    participant Flow as Automation Flow
    participant Agent as AI Agent
    participant Output as Output<br/>(Slack / Email / Project)

    Cron->>Flow: Fire daily at 09:00
    Flow->>Agent: Prompt: "Summarize new customer signups"
    Agent->>Flow: Generated summary
    Flow->>Output: Post to #growth channel

Build it

In the Automation builder, add a Schedule trigger (daily, weekly, cron).
Add an Ask Agent action and pick your agent.
In the prompt, reference trigger data via variables ({{run.date}}).
Add an output action (Slack, email, create task).

Pattern: Event-Triggered Agent

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

sequenceDiagram
    participant External as External Service
    participant Trigger as Taskade Trigger<br/>(Webhook / Form / Mail)
    participant Flow as Automation Flow
    participant Agent as AI Agent
    participant Action as Downstream Action

    External->>Trigger: Event occurs
    Trigger->>Flow: Fire automation
    Flow->>Agent: Prompt with event context
    Agent->>Flow: Response or decision
    Flow->>Action: Execute action with agent output
    Action->>External: Side effect

Example: customer feedback triage

Webhook trigger receives inbound form submission.
Agent classifies sentiment and extracts key topics.
Flow 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.

graph TB
    User[User prompt] --> Coordinator[Coordinator Agent]
    Coordinator --> Researcher[Researcher Agent<br/>web search, RSS]
    Coordinator --> Writer[Writer Agent<br/>drafting tools]
    Coordinator --> Editor[Editor Agent<br/>style guide]
    Researcher --> Coordinator
    Writer --> Coordinator
    Editor --> Coordinator
    Coordinator --> Output[Final output]

Orchestration modes

Auto — Coordinator picks which specialist to delegate to based on the task.
Everyone — Every specialist responds; coordinator synthesizes.
Orchestrate — Coordinator runs a structured handoff plan.

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 can call another agent as a tool. This lets specialist pipelines run without your app orchestrating each step.

// Agent A is configured with Agent B as a tool.
// 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();

// Under the hood:
//   Agent A (coordinator) → calls Agent B (researcher) as a tool
//   Agent B returns findings → Agent A writes the outline
//   A single response returns to your app

Cross-agent invocation shifts orchestration inside Taskade. Your app stays simple; agents handle the delegation.

Monitoring and Observability

Per-run details

Every automation run has a Run Details tab showing:

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 that don't retry

Taskade's automation engine distinguishes transient from permanent errors.

Transient (timeouts, 5xx) — auto-retried with backoff.
Permanent (invalid credentials, 400 errors) — fail fast, no retry, notification raised.

This prevents runaway credit spend on a broken connection.

Plan Gating

Feature	Free	Pro	Business+
Automations (basic triggers + actions)	Limited	✓	✓
Multi-agent teams	—	Limited	✓
Cross-agent invocation	—	✓	✓
Autopilot	—	✓	✓
Hosted MCP v2 (outbound connectors)	—	—	✓

{% hint style="info" %} See pricing for the authoritative gating per plan. {% endhint %}

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{% content-ref url="sdk-cookbook.md" %} sdk-cookbook.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="long-term-memory.md" %} long-term-memory.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="../genesis-living-system-builder/ai-features/multi-agents.md" %} multi-agents.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="../genesis-living-system-builder/ai-features/autopilot.md" %} autopilot.md {% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="../genesis-living-system-builder/automation/README.md" %} README.md {% endcontent-ref %}