What action builder is

Action builder defines things Zendesk can do in other systems, which AI agents, auto assist and flows can then call.

Action builder defines things Zendesk can do in other systems, which AI agents, auto assist and flows can then call.

The idea

An action is a named, reusable operation: look up an order, cancel a subscription, check a delivery. You define it once, with what it needs and what it returns, and then several things can use it.

That reuse is the point. Without it, every AI agent and every procedure would need its own integration code.

What can call an action

• AI agents, so a bot can do something rather than only answer.
• Auto assist procedures, so an agent-facing step can fetch or change something.
• Action flows, which chain several actions together.

Where they live, and the ceilings

Custom actions are created in Admin Center, under Apps and integrations, then Actions, then Custom actions, with Create custom action.

Four limits apply when you design against another system:

• 10 seconds. An action whose external system takes longer does not happen. That is the one that decides whether an integration is feasible at all.
• 2 MB maximum response size.
• 100 custom actions per account, each with up to 100 inputs and 100 outputs.
• 2,000 incoming API requests a minute for action flow triggers.

What needs Copilot

Not the action builder itself. Creating actions and building flows comes with Suite Growth and Support Team upwards. The add-on is needed for the auto assist parts: auto assist action flow triggers and custom action steps inside a flow can be added without it, and will not run.

That is a distinction worth keeping straight, because a flow that saves without complaint and then does nothing is otherwise a puzzle.

They consume credits

Each account has an allowance of action credits, and how large it is depends on your plan. So actions are not free to run in the way a trigger is, and a flow that calls three actions per ticket spends accordingly. Worth checking the allowance against your expected volume before building something that runs on everything.

Action or webhook

Both call another system, and they differ in who calls them and what comes back.

• A webhook is fired by a trigger, sends information, and does not use a reply.
• An action is called during a conversation or procedure, and its result is used in what happens next.

Notifying another system that a ticket exists is a webhook. Looking up an order to tell the customer where it is, is an action.

Start with reading

Actions that fetch information are low risk and immediately useful. Actions that change something in another system deserve considerably more care, particularly when an AI agent can invoke them on its own.

See also

• Creating an action
• Building an action flow
• What actions are and what an AI agent can do with them