Workflow Conditions

How Rootly workflows evaluate run conditions — all-of / any-of / none-of join operators, per-field operators, recipes, and troubleshooting misfires.

Overview

After a workflow’s trigger fires, Rootly evaluates run conditions to decide whether the workflow’s actions should execute. Conditions are the difference between a workflow that fires once a quarter on real SEV0s and one that fires hundreds of times a day on every minor update.

Every condition has two layers:

1. A join operator — how the individual conditions combine (all of, any of, none of).
2. A per-condition operator — how each condition compares its target field to the value(s) you configured (is, is one of, contains any of, is set, etc.).

Getting the join operator wrong is the most common cause of workflows that run more often than expected — the default is all of, but a slip to any of turns every condition into an OR.

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Join Operators

Rootly supports three operators for joining multiple run conditions:

Operator	Meaning	When to Use
all of	Every condition must be true.	The default and most common choice. Use when you want the workflow to fire only on a specific combination.
any of	At least one condition is true.	Use when any of several conditions independently warrants firing (e.g., SEV0 or Security incident type).
none of	Every condition must be false.	Use to exclude — e.g., “fire on all incidents except Test Kind”.

If a workflow is running more often than expected, verify the join operator. Defaulting to all of is the safe choice; any of turns N conditions into an OR and dramatically widens the match set.

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Per-Condition Operators

Each individual condition picks an operator that determines how Rootly compares the field’s current value to the value(s) you configured.

Operator	Returns true when…	Common Field Types
is	The field’s value matches exactly.	Single-select, boolean
is one of	A single-select field matches any of the provided values.	Single-select
none of	A single-select field matches none of the provided values.	Single-select
contains any of	A multi-select field includes at least one of the provided values.	Multi-select
contains all of	A multi-select field includes all of the provided values.	Multi-select
contains none of	A multi-select field includes none of the provided values.	Multi-select
is set	The field has any value.	Any
is unset	The field has no value.	Any

Operator Selection by Field Type

The right operator depends on whether the field stores a single value, multiple values, or a boolean:

• Boolean fields (e.g., Is Private) — use is set / is unset, or is true / is false patterns.
• Single-select fields (e.g., Severity, Kind, Status) — use is, is one of, none of.
• Multi-select fields (e.g., Services, Teams, Functionalities) — use contains any of, contains all of, contains none of.
• Presence checks — is set and is unset work on any field type and are useful for “fire only when an optional field has been filled in” patterns.

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Try It: Condition Evaluator

The widget below evaluates a condition group against a sample incident context so you can see the operator semantics in action before you build the real thing. Pick a preset, tweak the incident fields on the left, adjust the condition rows on the right, and watch the verdict flip. Each row shows whether it individually matched, and the top-level verdict applies the join operator across all rows.

This evaluator mirrors the operator semantics from Rootly’s condition engine (is, is one of, contains any of, contains all of, contains none of, is none of, is set, is unset) exactly. The available fields are a representative subset — production workflows expose more fields including all your custom fields.

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Common Condition Recipes

The patterns below cover the majority of real-world incident workflow conditions — each is a starting point you can extend with additional conditions joined by all of to scope further. Recipes for alert, action item, retrospective, or pulse workflows follow the same operator patterns but with different available fields.

Field examples like Services, Teams, Environments, Functionalities, and Incident Types can be configured as either single-select or multi-select per workspace (see Built-in Fields). The recipes below assume the default multi-select configuration; if your workspace has one of these set to single-select, use is / is one of / none of in place of the contains-family operators.

All values shown in the recipes are the user-facing labels visible in the workflow editor. In the raw API and audit-log payloads, some of these correspond to different internal identifiers (for example, the Kind label Sub Test Incident is test_sub); use the labels shown in the UI when authoring conditions.

Fire only on SEV0 production incidents

all of
  Severity is one of: SEV0
  Environments contains any of: Production
  Kind is: Incident

The Kind is: Incident clause is the easiest miss — without it, a Test Incident at SEV0 will fire the workflow. This example assumes Environments is multi-select (the default); if it’s configured as single-select, use Environment is: Production instead.

Fire only on incidents owned by a specific team

all of
  Teams contains any of: Platform

contains any of (not is) because Teams is multi-select by default. Teams is one of would silently fail to match incidents tagged with multiple teams that include Platform. If your workspace has Teams configured as single-select, use Teams is one of: Platform.

Exclude test incidents from a paging workflow

all of
  Kind is: Incident
  Severity is one of: SEV0, SEV1

Or, equivalently, list the kinds to exclude explicitly:

none of
  Kind is one of: Test Incident, Sub Test Incident, Scheduled Maintenance, Sub Scheduled Maintenance, Backfill Incident

The positive form (Kind is: Incident) is usually clearer and survives the addition of new Kind values better than an exclusion list. See Incident Kind for the full list of kinds and what each one triggers.

Fire only when a custom field is filled in

all of
  Custom Field "Customer Tier" is set

Combine with another condition like Severity is one of: SEV0 to scope further.

Fire on any status update except cancellation

none of
  Status is one of: Cancelled

Paired with a Status Updated trigger.

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How Conditions Interact with Triggers

Triggers are OR-joined — if any selected trigger fires, the workflow initiates. Conditions are then evaluated against the incident’s state at the moment the trigger fired.

This has two consequences worth knowing:

1. Triggers do not contribute to conditions. A workflow with a Status Updated trigger and a Status is mitigated condition will fire only when status changes to mitigated — but Status in the condition refers to the new status, not the trigger event.
2. Conditions evaluate post-trigger. If a workflow’s trigger is Incident Created and a condition references Mitigated At, the condition evaluates against the just-created incident — which has no mitigated_at yet. Use is unset deliberately if you want to fire only on freshly-created incidents.

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Best Practices

• Default to all of and verify the operator before saving. A workflow that fires too often is almost always an any of slip.
• Always include a Kind is: Incident condition on any workflow that pages or notifies people. Without it, Test Incidents will trigger the workflow during training and demos.
• Prefer positive conditions over exclusion lists. Kind is: Incident survives the introduction of a new kind value; a none of exclusion list (Test Incident, Sub Test Incident, Scheduled Maintenance, Sub Scheduled Maintenance, Backfill Incident) breaks the next time a kind is added.
• Use contains any of for multi-select fields. is and is one of silently fail to match when the field stores multiple values that include your target — use the contains-family operators instead.
• Test new conditions on Test Incidents first. Run a /rootly test and confirm the workflow fires (or doesn’t) as expected before relying on it in production.

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Troubleshooting

A workflow runs when not all conditions are met

Check the join operator. The default is all of — if it’s been switched to any of, the workflow fires whenever a single condition matches. Open the workflow’s run conditions block and verify the operator is all of (or the value you actually intended).

The workflow doesn't fire even though it should

Three common causes:

1. Trigger mismatch. Workflows fire only on the triggers you selected. If you expect a workflow to fire on Severity Updated but only Status Updated is selected, it won’t run.
2. Multi-select condition using is. A condition like Teams is Platform evaluates to false when Teams contains [Platform, Database]. Switch to Teams contains any of: Platform.
3. Kind filter exclusion. If the workflow has Kind is: Incident and you’re testing with a /rootly test, the condition correctly filters out the test incident. Drop the Kind filter temporarily or run a real /rootly new for the test.

A workflow fires for test incidents

Add a Kind is: Incident condition to scope the workflow to real production incidents only. Test incidents trigger workflows by default, which is desirable when you want to validate workflow logic — but undesirable for workflows that page humans or notify customers.

A condition referencing a custom field doesn't evaluate

Custom field conditions evaluate against the field’s current value at the time the trigger fires. If the field is populated later in the incident’s lifecycle, an Incident Created trigger will see the field as unset. Either change the trigger to a later event (e.g., Status Updated) or add a separate workflow keyed off the field being populated.

A `none of` condition is matching when I expected it to fail

none of returns true when none of the listed values match — so an empty/unset field returns true (none of the values match because there’s no value to match). If you want the condition to require the field to be set, combine none of with is set under an all of join.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I nest condition groups?

No. Rootly’s condition editor is flat — every condition in a workflow uses the same join operator (all of, any of, or none of). To express compound boolean logic (e.g., (A AND B) OR (C AND D)), split into two workflows or restructure as a single workflow with conditions that can be joined under one operator.

Are conditions evaluated against the incident's pre-update or post-update state?

Post-update. When a Status Updated trigger fires after an incident moves from Started to Mitigated, conditions reference the post-mitigation state — Status is mitigated returns true.

Do conditions support Liquid expressions?

Run conditions use a structured comparison interface (field + operator + value), not Liquid. For dynamic logic, use Liquid in workflow actions instead. Custom field values can still be compared structurally.

Can a workflow with no conditions fire?

Yes. A workflow with zero conditions fires every time any of its triggers fires. This is usually unintended — add at least one condition to scope when the workflow runs.

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Related Pages

Workflows Overview

The umbrella page covering the full workflow execution model.

Incident Workflows

Workflow type for standard incident lifecycle automation.

Actions Reference

The full catalog of actions a workflow can execute once conditions pass.