Automations are the “when X happens, do Y” surface of HostAtlas. Each automation binds a trigger (schedule, webhook, or alert) to an action type from a curated library (backup, cleanup, notify, run a recipe). Recipes are the what you run; automations are the when and the why.

What you see

Under Automations in the sidebar. The index page groups automations into tabs by category:

• Backups — scheduled backups, database maintenance.
• Security — SSL renewal, disk cleanup, auto-block IPs, config rollback, firewall auto-setup.
• Monitoring — stale-server alerts, scale recommendations, service auto-recovery, container auto-restart, log pattern alerts, domain expiry alerts.
• Integrations — deploy hooks, webhook actions.
• Maintenance — maintenance-window suppression rules.

Each row shows name, type, target (server / tag / global), schedule or trigger summary, on / off toggle, and last-run status.

What you can do

• Create — pick a type first, then fill in target and configuration; the form adapts to the type you chose.
• Toggle — turn an automation on or off without deleting it.
• Edit — change target, schedule, or configuration.
• Delete — remove the automation; any recurring schedule stops.
• Open logs — every execution with timestamp, target, outcome, and output.

Action types

The library includes:

Type	What it does
Scheduled Backup	Runs a backup path on a schedule
Database Maintenance	Vacuums, analyzes, or dumps a database on schedule
Auto SSL Renewal	Renews Let’s Encrypt (or ACME-compatible) certificates before expiry
Disk Cleanup	Rotates logs and removes staleness on a schedule or trigger
Stale Server Alert	Flags servers that stopped reporting
Domain Expiry Alert	Notifies before a domain registration lapses
Scale Recommendation	Emits a recommendation when sustained load suggests a resize
Service Auto-Recovery	Restarts a Linux service when its alert fires (paired with a Recovery rule)
Container Auto-Restart	Restarts a Docker container by name on failure
Auto-Block IPs	Adds a firewall rule after N failed auth attempts
Config Auto-Rollback	Reverts a bad server configuration change automatically
Firewall Auto-Setup	Applies a baseline firewall policy on new servers
Log Pattern Alert	Fires when a regex matches in tailed logs
Deploy Hook	Reacts to a deployment event (marker, webhook, or CI push)
Webhook Action	Generic outbound POST when the trigger fires
Maintenance Suppress	Applies a maintenance window automatically on a schedule

Trigger types

• Scheduled — cron-style expression evaluated in the workspace timezone.
• Webhook — an inbound URL you POST to; each automation gets its own signed URL and secret.
• Alert — reacts when a specific alert rule fires (this is how service-recovery and disk-cleanup are wired to metric alerts).

How it works

• Scheduled automations are dispatched by the HostAtlas scheduler on their cadence and fanned out to the target server(s).
• Webhook automations expose a per-automation URL; the request is signed and payload validated before the action runs.
• Alert-triggered automations subscribe to the underlying alert engine and run when a match arrives.
• Every execution — success or failure — is recorded on the Logs tab of the automation with duration, target, and output. Failed runs surface on the row’s status badge.

Note

Automations vs. Recovery rules vs. Recipes. A recipe is a script. An automation is a scheduled or event-driven runner (often of a recipe). A Recovery rule is the specific case of “an alert fires, do the fix.” Use whichever matches the mental model — they share the same execution engine underneath.

Related

• Recipes — the scripts most automations execute.
• Recovery rules — the alert-triggered subset with guardrails.
• Alerts & Incidents — the source of alert triggers.