Build Your First Workflow

Build a workflow that runs a Terraform plan, waits for approval, applies the infrastructure, and notifies your team — all automated.

Scenario

Your team deploys infrastructure changes manually today. You want to:

Automate the plan → approve → apply sequence
Require a human to review and approve the plan before anything is created
Notify your Slack channel when the deployment completes

Prerequisites

✓An IaC project configured and ready to deploy

✓Slack integration connected (optional — for the notification step)

Step 1: Create the Workflow

1Click Workflows in the left sidebar

2Click + New Workflow

3Name it Gated IaC Deployment

4Set Trigger Type to Manual for now (you can switch to GitHub or scheduled later)

5Click Create

Step 2: Add Step 1 — IaC Deploy (Plan Only)

1In the workflow editor, click Add Step

2Select IaC Deploy as the step type

Configure the step:

Field	Value
Step Name	Plan Infrastructure
Project	Select your IaC project
Execution Mode	`plan_only` — runs `terraform plan` but does not apply
Auto-Approve Plan	Off

Click Save Step.

Step 3: Add Step 2 — Approval Gate

1Click Add Step after Step 1

2Select Approval as the step type

Configure the step:

Field	Value
Step Name	Review Plan
Message	`Review the Terraform plan output from the previous step. Approve to proceed with apply.`
Approvers	Add email addresses of engineers who should approve

Click Save Step.

The workflow will pause here and send a notification to the approvers. It waits until someone approves or rejects before continuing.

Step 4: Add Step 3 — IaC Deploy (Apply)

1Click Add Step after the Approval step

2Select IaC Deploy

Configure the step:

Field	Value
Step Name	Apply Infrastructure
Project	Same IaC project as Step 1
Execution Mode	`plan_and_apply`
Auto-Approve Plan	On (we already reviewed it in the approval step)

Click Save Step.

Step 5: Add Step 4 — Slack Notification

1Click Add Step after the Apply step

2Select Notification

Configure the step:

Field	Value
Step Name	Notify Team
Channel	Slack
Message	`Deployment complete: {{ workflow.name }} #{{ execution.number }} — Status: {{ previousStep.status }}`

Click Save Step.

Your Completed Workflow

The visual pipeline now shows 4 steps connected in sequence:

[Plan Infrastructure] → [Review Plan] → [Apply Infrastructure] → [Notify Team]
      IaC Plan           Approval Gate       IaC Apply             Slack

Step 6: Run the Workflow

1Click Run in the workflow toolbar

2Confirm — the workflow execution starts

Watch the execution progress in real time:

Workflow Execution #1: Gated IaC Deployment
──────────────────────────────────────────

  ✓  Step 1: Plan Infrastructure    SUCCEEDED  (42s)
              5 resources to add, 0 to change

  ⏳  Step 2: Review Plan           WAITING FOR APPROVAL
              Approvers notified: alice@company.com

  ...  Step 3: Apply Infrastructure  PENDING
  ...  Step 4: Notify Team           PENDING

Step 7: Approve the Plan

The approver receives an email or in-app notification. They:

Open the workflow execution
Review the plan output from Step 1
Click Approve (or Reject to stop the workflow)

After approval, the workflow continues automatically:

  ✓  Step 1: Plan Infrastructure    SUCCEEDED  (42s)
  ✓  Step 2: Review Plan            APPROVED by alice@company.com  (3m 12s)
  ✓  Step 3: Apply Infrastructure   SUCCEEDED  (1m 55s)
              5 resources added
  ✓  Step 4: Notify Team            SUCCEEDED  (3s)
              Slack message sent to #deployments

Workflow Execution #1: SUCCESS  Total: 5m 32s

Setting Up Automatic Triggers

Once you've tested the manual workflow, switch to automatic triggers.

On GitHub PR merge:

Edit the workflow
Set Trigger Type to GitHub
Select your repository and branch (e.g. main)
The workflow runs automatically every time a PR is merged

On schedule:

Set Trigger Type to Scheduled
Enter a cron expression (e.g. 0 2 * * 1 = every Monday at 2am)

Next Steps

All step types →

Shell commands, HTTP requests, Kubernetes deploys, conditions, and more

Configure triggers →

GitHub events, cron schedules, webhooks, and manual triggers

Troubleshooting

Workflow stuck at Approval step

Approvers must have an ops0 account. Check that the email addresses entered match valid organization members. The approver can also approve directly from the Workflows page without needing the email link.

Step 3 (Apply) fails after approval

Ensure the IaC project still has valid cloud credentials. If credentials rotated between the plan and apply steps, re-link the integration. The plan output from Step 1 is re-evaluated at apply time.

Slack notification not sent

Check that your Slack integration is connected in Settings → Integrations → Alerts. Verify the webhook URL is valid by testing it from the integration settings page.