---
name: journal-triggers
description: Load it when the user wants words watched for, or a trigger fires. Words you choose, and what the journal does when they come up.
keywords: triggers, trigger
commands: triggers
---

# Triggers

Words you choose, and what the journal does when they come up.

journal trigger create "<what it is for>" --set words="git push,force" --set does=nudge --set text="<what to say>" writes one. words_in says where the words are matched: text, commands, both (the default), everything, or user for only what the user writes.

does is one of message, nudge, instruct, deny, start, hold; hold keeps the main agent's writes until the fact is no longer true. A message reaches the chat as if the user wrote it, a nudge and an instruction are said to you alone, and a deny refuses the tool call with the trigger's text as the reason. In your own chat text a deny cannot unsay the words, so it is marked and you are told. A start does nothing of its own: it starts the sequences whose starts_on names it (trigger:<n>), which is how a sequence starts on words or a command.

A trigger can instead watch the journal: --set when=state --set fact=message.unanswered --set over=5 says a message has waited more than 5 minutes. only_when is any, idle or working; timing is the minutes before it says so again (0 says it once for each row); most caps the times for each row. A trigger on a fact does nudge, instruct or hold, never message or deny.

Its lines and guards are for the main agent only; none reach a subagent.