Automations

An automation is the reusable definition that controls how Anchor creates
and follows up on a notification. Every automation is one of two types:

• A Reminder stores its notification content and runs on a schedule.
• An API trigger stores the response, urgency, retry, escalation, and
  delivery policy while an authenticated caller supplies the notification
  content when it invokes the automation.

Use a Reminder when Anchor owns when something should happen. Use an API
trigger when another system already knows that something happened—for
example, a monitoring service detects an outage, a Life Tracker cutoff is
missed, an iPhone Shortcut finishes, or a home-automation sensor changes state.

Pausing an automation prevents it from creating future notifications. Existing
active notifications continue until they reach a terminal state.

Reminder schedules

Reminder schedules use the home timezone configured in Settings. Anchor
evaluates recurring schedules with daylight-saving transitions in mind and
records the scheduled time for each notification.

Anchor’s quiet period delays Routine and Important delivery. It does not silently discard a notification.

Anchor and Pushover quiet periods

The two settings act at different stages:

Setting	What happens during the configured period
Anchor quiet period	Anchor does not send Routine or Important notifications yet. It waits until the period ends, subject to the notification deadline. Emergency bypasses this restriction.
Pushover quiet hours	Pushover receives the notification immediately. Routine is presented silently, while Important and Emergency can bypass Pushover quiet hours.

For example, consider an Important notification due at 2:00 AM while both systems are configured for 10:00 PM–7:00 AM:

• With only Pushover quiet hours, Anchor sends it at 2:00 AM and Important bypasses those hours.
• With Anchor’s quiet period enabled, Anchor waits and sends it at 7:00 AM.
• If waiting until 7:00 AM would exceed the notification deadline, Anchor marks it Missed instead.
• Emergency is sent immediately regardless of Anchor’s quiet period.

Disable Anchor’s quiet period and use Pushover quiet hours when notifications should arrive immediately but ordinary alerts may be silent. Enable Anchor’s quiet period when overnight Routine and Important notifications should wait until morning. You only need both when Pushover quiet hours must also govern messages from other applications or the two periods intentionally use different schedules.

Manual and authenticated triggers

Trigger now creates a real test notification through the same durable
workflow used by scheduled and authenticated triggers.

An API client invokes an API trigger with
POST /v1/automations/{automation_id}/trigger and an API key authorized for
automations:trigger. The request supplies the title, message, idempotency key,
and optional source context. Anchor applies the saved automation policy.

Duplicate an automation when you want a new independently editable definition
with the same starting configuration.