Set up Prefect 3 automations for event-driven flow orchestration on a self-hosted server
domain: docs.prefect.io · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Install Prefect 3 (pip install prefect>=3.0) and start a self-hosted Prefect server with `prefect server start` — the automations engine is included in the open-source package.
Define an automation in the Prefect UI or via the API: choose a trigger (event-based, metric threshold, or schedule) and one or more actions (run deployment, cancel run, send notification).
Emit custom events from your code using `emit_event` where needed to feed the automation trigger.
Deploy your flow to a work pool so the automation's 'run deployment' action has a target to execute.
Verify the automation fires by checking the Events feed in the Prefect UI after the trigger condition is met.
Known gotchas
The automations engine was open-sourced in Prefect 3.0 (GA September 2024); it is not Cloud-only — self-hosted OSS installations have full access.
Prefect 2.x does not include the open-source automations engine; migrating from 2.x to 3.x is required to use this feature without a Cloud subscription.
Automations that trigger on external events (e.g., a file arriving in object storage) require your application to emit a corresponding Prefect event or use a webhook integration.
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