Send event

To trigger your custom event workflows, you’ll need to send an event to our API. You can do this via our @trigger.dev/sdk package or via our HTTP API.

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Sending events via @trigger.dev/sdk

If you are using our Node.js SDK, you can send events via the sendEvent function, like so:

import { sendEvent } from "@trigger.dev/sdk";
import { randomUUID } from "node:crypto";

//send an event with the name "user.created"
//and the payload
await sendEvent(randomUUID(), {
  name: "user.created",
  payload: { userId: "123456" },
});

The first parameter is a unique ID for the event. This is used to deduplicate events, so if you send the same event twice, the second event will be ignored. You can use the randomUUID function from Node.js to generate a unique ID.

The second parameter is the event itself. It must have a name and a payload property. The name is the name of the event you want to trigger, and the payload is the data you want to send as the event in the Trigger.run function.

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API Key

It’s not accepted as a parameter, but the sendEvent function will automatically use the TRIGGER_API_KEY environment variable as the API key. The API key determines which environment will receive the event. If you want to send events to a different environment, you can set the TRIGGER_API_KEY environment variable to the API key of the environment you want to send events to. See our Environments & API Keys Guide for more info.

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Sending events as a step in a workflow

You can also send events as a step in a workflow, by calling sendEvent inside the Trigger.run function, like so:

import { Trigger, scheduleEvent, sendEvent } from "@trigger.dev/sdk";

new Trigger({
  id: "check-scheduler",
  name: "Check Scheduler",
  on: scheduleEvent({ rateOf: { minutes: 10 } }),
  run: async (event, context) => {
    await sendEvent("send-event", {
      name: "health.check",
      payload: {
        url: "https://trigger.dev",
        host: "trigger.dev",
      },
    });
  },
}).listen();

Notice that the first parameter is no longer the event ID, but rather the key. The key is a string that is unique across all actions in the workflow run. See our Keys and Resumability Guide for more info.

The API key will be automatically set to the API key of the environment that the workflow is running in.

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Sending events via HTTP API

You can also send events via our HTTP API. We have comprehensive documentation for the events endpoint here, but here are some examples in various languages:

• curl

• ruby

• python

• go

curl --request POST \
  --url https://app.trigger.dev/api/v1/events \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <your api key here>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
            "id": "<unique event id>",
            "event": {
              "name": "user.created",
              "payload": {
                "userId": "123456"
              }
            }
          }'

Notice that the API key is set in the Authorization header, which will determine which environment will receive the event. If you want to send events to a different environment, you can set the Authorization header to the API key of the environment you want to send events to. See our Environments & API Keys Guide for more info.

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Delaying event delivery

Through both our Node.js SDK and our HTTP API, you can delay the delivery of an event. This is useful if you want to send an event to trigger a workflow, but you want to wait for a certain amount of time before the event is delivered.

Using the health check example above, we can delay the delivery of the health.check event in various ways:

new Trigger({
  id: "check-scheduler",
  name: "Check Scheduler",
  on: scheduleEvent({ rateOf: { minutes: 10 } }),
  run: async (event, context) => {
    await sendEvent("health.check trigger.dev", {
      name: "health.check",
      payload: {
        url: "https://trigger.dev",
        host: "trigger.dev",
      },
      delay: { until: new Date(Date.now() + 1000 * 60 * 5) }, // Delay until a specific date
    });

    await sendEvent("health.check docs.trigger.dev", {
      name: "health.check",
      payload: {
        url: "https://docs.trigger.dev",
        host: "docs.trigger.dev",
      },
      delay: { minutes: 5 }, // Delay for a specific amount of time
    });

    await sendEvent("health.check app.trigger.dev", {
      name: "health.check",
      payload: {
        url: "https://app.trigger.dev/healthcheck",
        host: "app.trigger.dev",
      },
      delay: { seconds: 30 }, // Delay for a specific amount of time
    });
  },
}).listen();

You can add delays via the HTTP API by adding a delay object to the event:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://app.trigger.dev/api/v1/events \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <insert_api_key_here>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
            "id": "<unique event id>",
            "event": {
              "name": "user.created",
              "payload": {
                "userId": "123456"
              },
              "delay": {
                "seconds": 30
              }
            }
          }'