# Event-driven agent

**Source:** https://promtable.com/glossary/event-driven-agent

> An event-driven agent is an LLM agent triggered by external events (webhook, queue, schedule, system signal) rather than direct chat — handles tickets, monitors logs, sends reminders, runs ETL with reasoning.

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An event-driven agent is an LLM agent triggered by external events (webhook, queue, schedule, system signal) rather than direct chat — handles tickets, monitors logs, sends reminders, runs ETL with reasoning.

Chat agents wait for human input; event-driven agents react to system events. Examples: webhook fires when GitHub PR opens → agent reviews it; Stripe webhook fires on failed payment → agent drafts apology email; CloudWatch alarm fires → agent triages logs and pages a human if needed. Architecturally event-driven agents pair an [[workflow-trigger]] (webhook, queue, cron) with a durable executor ([[workflow-engine]], [[background-agent]]) and an LLM reasoning step. Production patterns: cap cost per event ($X budget cap), retry on transient failures, escalate to humans on confidence drops, dead-letter for repeated failures. Most production AI 'automation' falls into this category — not chat, not autonomous agents, but event-triggered LLM execution.

## When to use

- System integrations where reasoning beats hard-coded logic.
- Asynchronous ticket triage, log monitoring.

## Common mistakes

- No cost cap — runaway loop burns budget.
- No escalation path — agent silently mishandles edge cases.

## Related terms

- [workflow-trigger](https://promtable.com/glossary/workflow-trigger)
- [background-agent](https://promtable.com/glossary/background-agent)
- [approval-workflow](https://promtable.com/glossary/approval-workflow)

*Last updated: 2026-06-01*
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Original page: https://promtable.com/glossary/event-driven-agent
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