Automations

An automation is a standing rule: when something happens on the board, do something else automatically. Every board has its own independent list of rules.

deckgauge · Automations

When status changes to Done → Log notification

enabled

When item is created → Move to group Triage

disabled

Two rules — one enabled, one disabled.

What it does, and where the data comes from

Automations open from the board toolbar's Automations button. Each rule pairs exactly one trigger with one action, and is named automatically from the two unless you give it your own name.

Triggers and actions

Triggers	Actions
When status changes to …	Change status
When item is created	Move to group
	Log notification

"When status changes to …" fires when a row's status becomes the one you pick from this board's status list. "Change status" and "Move to group" both target this board's own statuses and groups — a group must exist before you can pick it as a target. "Log notification" records a message you write when the rule fires.

Rules fire on synced rows too

A rule applies to every row on the board, however that row got there — whether a person typed it in or a sync from Jira, GitHub or Azure DevOps created it. That includes the Jira sweep that marks vanished issues Deleted: as far as a rule is concerned "Deleted" is a status like any other, so a "when status changes to Deleted" rule fires there.

The reasoning is that a rule you wrote is an instruction, not a notification. If you asked Deckgauge to move every item that reaches Done, you meant every item — not only the ones moved by hand.

Two situations produce a burst of rule firings The first sync of a board imports every matching issue as a new row, so a "when item is created" rule fires once per imported issue — potentially hundreds in one run. Changing a board's status mapping rewrites the status on every affected row on the next sync, and each rewrite looks exactly like a status change even though no work actually moved. Consider disabling broad rules before either, and re-enabling afterwards.

A status trigger with no status picked matches everything A "when status changes to …" rule saved without a target status is shown as "when status changes to any", and it matches every status change on the board. Paired with "Log notification" — which notifies immediately rather than batching into a digest — that is a lot of bells.

How to create and manage a rule

+ Add automation — opens the rule builder.
Pick a trigger — "When status changes to …" (then choose the target status) or "When item is created".
Pick an action — "Change status" (choose the target status), "Move to group" (choose the target group — required before saving), or "Log notification" (write the message).
Save — the rule appears in the list, described in plain English as "trigger → action".
Enable or disable — the toggle on each rule turns it on or off without deleting it.
Delete — removes the rule entirely.

If it looks wrong

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Save is blocked with "Please select a group"	"Move to group" was chosen with no group picked	Create a group on this board first, then select it
A rule never fires	It's disabled	Flip its toggle on
Trigger status list is empty	The board has no statuses configured yet	Add statuses first — see Board statuses
A "Move to group" action keeps getting undone on a GitHub board	The board source maps GitHub milestones onto groups, and that mapping re-asserts the group on every sync	Give the source an explicit target group, or drop the milestone-to-group mapping — a rule and a milestone map are two things claiming the same column
Hundreds of notifications right after connecting a source	The first sync creates every row, so "when item is created" fires per imported issue	Disable the rule for the first sync, then re-enable it
Status-change rules fired but nothing moved	A change to the board's status mapping rewrote the status on every affected row	Expected; the rows' underlying work did not change

Board statuses and what they mean — the status list triggers and actions read from.
Groups, rows and getting work onto a board — the groups a "Move to group" action targets.

Last updated 27 August 2026