Ambient Agent FAQs
Short, practical answers to the most common questions about Ambient Agents and System Triggers on Moveworks.
What is an ambient agent?
Ambient agents are always-on, event-driven automations. They listen for signals from your systems, reason with LLMs, and can execute workflows end-to-end with optional human approvals—no user prompt required.
What is a webhook, anyway?
A webhook is a way for one system (like GitHub or Workday) to automatically send real-time updates to another (like Moveworks) when something happens—e.g., a new ticket is filed or a document is signed.
Moveworks uses a Listener to receive these webhook events and trigger automation, notifications, or approvals.
Common terms
| Term | What it means in plain English |
|---|---|
| Listener | A webhook receiver you configure in Moveworks to accept events from a system like GitHub, Salesforce, etc. |
| Webhook URL | A unique Moveworks-generated URL that external systems post events to. |
| Payload | The JSON body of the webhook—the event data (e.g., ticket title, user name). |
| Headers | Metadata sent with the request—includes event type, signature, or secret token. |
| System Trigger | A non-conversational trigger that starts a plugin (webhook, poller, or scheduled). |
| Event Filtering | Rules to discard unwanted events (e.g., “ignore closed tickets”). Can run at the listener level or inside the plugin. |
| Signature / HMAC | Security feature that confirms the sender is trusted and the payload wasn’t tampered with. |
| Validation / Schema | Ensures the payload has the fields you expect (e.g., title must be a string). |
| Replay Protection | Prevents duplicate requests from triggering the same plugin twice. |
How is “ambient” different from other agent types?
Moveworks supports three blueprints:
- Aggregation — prompt → information
- Action — prompt → transaction
- Ambient — system trigger → orchestration (no prompt)
What is a System Trigger? What types exist?
System triggers start workflows based on events, checks, or schedules.
| Trigger Type | Example | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Webhook | “New GitHub issue opened” | Real-time automation |
| Poller | “Check device logs every 5 min” | Systems that don’t support webhooks |
| Scheduled | “Run script every Monday at 9am” | Time-based workflows (e.g., license cleanups) |
Availability: Webhooks are in Limited Preview. Pollers and Scheduled triggers are coming soon.
Why should I secure my webhook listener?
Webhook traffic often includes sensitive data. Without authentication or signature verification, anyone who knows your Listener URL could trigger your workflow, causing unauthorized requests, data exposure, or unexpected automation runs.
What security options are available?
- Signature verification (HMAC) — recommended. Configure a signing secret so Moveworks can verify the request comes from your provider and hasn’t been altered.
- Auth settings — require a bearer/API token in a header on every request.
What happens if I don’t secure my listener?
Unsecured listeners are heavily rate-limited to reduce risk.
- Unsecured: 1 request every 10 seconds (max 6/min)
- Secured: 20 requests per second (max 1200/min)
Limits are subject to change, but unsecured listeners will always have significantly lower limits.
Can I still publish an unsecured listener?
Yes—but it’s strongly discouraged, especially for production.
Can a single plugin be triggered by both a webhook and a conversational prompt?
No. A plugin must use one trigger paradigm: system triggers (one or many) or conversational triggers (one or many). If you need both, create two plugins.
Can multiple system triggers target the same plugin?
Yes. A plugin can subscribe to multiple system triggers (e.g., several Listeners), and one event can fan-out to multiple plugins if their conditions match.
Do you validate webhook payloads? Which formats are supported?
Yes. Use Payload Schema to validate structure and types (LP focus: JSON). Without a schema, the request is treated as unstructured downstream.
Other formats may come later.
Can I filter events before they become Moveworks events?
Yes. Event Filtering runs at the listener (global) and plugin (per-workflow) layers.
Copy-paste examples (Listener DSL):
A) GitHub — onlyissues.opened in one repo and titles containing “bug”:
(action == "opened")
AND (repository.full_name == "acme/widgets")
AND (issue.title.$LOWERCASE() CONTAINS "bug")
B) DocuSign — only fully executed envelopes; Sales contracts ≥ $10k:
(event == "EnvelopeSigned")
AND (contract.type == "Sales")
AND ($DECIMAL(contract.value) >= 10000)
C) Headers/params guard — only accept from prod and ignoredry_run=true:
(headers["X-Env"].$LOWERCASE() == "prod")
AND NOT (query_params["dry_run"].$LOWERCASE() == "true")
How do you handle duplicate deliveries or retries?
Enable Deduplication with a reliable key (e.g., X-GitHub-Delivery, event.id) and a deduplication window to drop duplicates and provider retries. This complements signature verification for replay protection.
What logs are available to debug a webhook end-to-end?
Three dedicated logs trace the lifecycle:
listener.webhook.trigger— request received (headers, method, parsed body, timestamps)listener.webhook.processor.update— processing outcome (published, failure reason, debounced)listener.webhook.plugin.trigger— which plugins were evaluated/triggered/skipped/expired
See Webhook Logs & Troubleshooting for playbooks like “plugin never ran”.
What if an app doesn’t have a UI to set up webhooks?
You have two paths:
Option 1 — API-based registration (if supported):
Some platforms expose APIs to register webhooks (e.g., Slack, Zoom, Okta). Use curl/Postman/SDKs to POST your Moveworks Listener URL and secret to the provider’s registration endpoint.
Option 2 — No UI and no API:
You can’t use webhooks with that app. Use a poller or scheduled trigger once available in Moveworks.
Where do approvals fit with ambient agents?
Approvals are part of the Process that runs after a trigger fires. Agents can run fully autonomously or pause for notify / question / review moments.
Why ambient on Moveworks vs. an iPaaS?
Listeners give our agents “ears” to hear events, reason over context, and act using Moveworks processes often eliminating the need for a separate iPaaS for these flows.
Updated about 11 hours ago