The moment it happens

Get error alerts with a plain-English explanation

When one of your jobs or systems fails, #ops gets the error and a one-line guess at the cause, without the same error twice in an hour.

Runs: The moment it happens
Apps: Slack
AI: Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access: chat:write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: give me a link my scripts can send errors to. Post each one to #ops with a one-line explanation of what probably went wrong, and don't repeat the same error within an hour.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A nightly import fails at 2 a.m. with a stack trace that begins "Connection reset by peer". The error goes to a logging tool or an inbox, where it blends with other noise, and the on-call engineer wakes up to forty identical alerts and no idea whether this one is new. Non-technical teammates see "Job failed" and have to ask someone what it means. Time passes while people translate error text or investigate a retry loop that has already cleared itself.

When one of your jobs sends an error to ClickRuntime, it checks whether the same error was seen recently and drops the duplicate. For new ones, its built-in AI writes a plain-English explanation of the likely cause and a suggested first check, and the post goes to a channel like #ops with the original error beneath it.

It works for cron jobs, serverless functions, payment webhooks or any system that can send a JSON error to a URL.

What you get out of it

On-call engineers get context first
A short note such as "the database refused the connection, likely a restart or exhausted pool" gives the responder somewhere to start before they have opened a terminal or a log viewer.
Alert storms become one message
A broken integration can produce hundreds of identical errors in an hour. Skipping duplicates seen recently keeps the channel readable and means the one new problem is not buried under old ones.
Non-engineers can follow along
Support and operations see a sentence they can understand, so they know whether to warn customers or wait, rather than interrupting an engineer to ask what a stack trace means.
Failures are not missed overnight
Errors posted in a team channel are seen by whoever is online in any time zone, instead of sitting in a single person's inbox until they return from sleep, leave or a flight.
Recurring problems leave a trail
Because every distinct error is explained and logged in the channel, you can search for "timeout" and see how often it happened, which supports an argument for fixing the underlying cause.

How it works

What happens, step by step

When one of your systems reports an error, ClickRuntime receives it the moment it happens.
If the same error from the same system was already posted within the last hour, it stays quiet to avoid noise.
AI reads the error message and writes one plain-English sentence on what most likely caused it.
The alert goes to your Slack channel, such as #ops, with the system name, the error and the explanation.

Before it runs live

Connect Slack, then invite the app to the channel (type /invite @ClickRuntime there)
Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings

What you get

RunsThe moment it happens

Get error alerts with a plain-English explanationjust nowSucceeded

Slack · #ops🚨 billing-sync: psycopg2.OperationalError: could not connect to server: Connection timed out The database host is unreachable, likely a network or security group change.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
Add another app, for example also send it to Google Sheets
Combine it with other Slack steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

error_alerts_from_your_systems_with_an_ai_explanation.pyexample

import hashlib, time
from clickruntime import on_event, state, ai, notify

@on_event
def handle(event):
    err = event.json or {}
    message = str(err.get("message", ""))[:1500]
    key = "err:" + hashlib.sha1(f"{err.get('source')}:{message}".encode()).hexdigest()
    last = state.get(key)
    if last and time.time() - last < 3600:
        return {"posted": False, "reason": "repeat within an hour"}
    hint = ai.generate(
        f"In one sentence, say what most likely caused this error:\n{message}",
        max_output_tokens=80,
    ).text.strip()
    notify.slack(f":rotating_light: {err.get('source', 'unknown')}: {message[:300]}\n_{hint}_", channel="#ops")
    state.set(key, time.time())
    return {"posted": True}

FAQ

Common questions

How does it decide an error is a duplicate?

It compares the error message and source against ones seen within a time window you choose, such as one hour. The same error inside that window is skipped, and after the window it can alert again if the problem persists.

Is my error data sent to an outside AI provider I need to configure?

No. The explanation is produced by ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so there is no OpenAI or Anthropic key to set up. Still, avoid sending secrets or customer data in error payloads, since the text is posted to Slack.

Does the explanation replace the real error?

No. The original error text appears in the post under the explanation. The AI note is a starting hint, and it can be wrong, so the engineer should treat it as guidance and confirm against the actual message.

What permissions does it need?

chat:write. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run for each event the app sends.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

The moment it happensAI