Trigger Plugin

What Is a Trigger Plugin?

Triggers were introduced in Dify v1.10.0 as a new type of start node. Unlike functional nodes such as Code, Tool, or Knowledge Retrieval, the purpose of a trigger is to convert third-party events into an input format that Dify can recognize and process.

For example, if you configure Dify as the new email event receiver in Gmail, every time you receive a new email, Gmail automatically sends an event to Dify that can be used to trigger a workflow. However:

• Gmail’s original event format is not compatible with Dify’s input format.

• There are thousands of platforms worldwide, each with its own unique event format.

Therefore, we need trigger plugins to define and parse these events from different platforms and in various formats, and to unify them into an input format that Dify can accept.

Technical Overview

Dify triggers are implemented based on webhooks, a widely adopted mechanism across the web. Many mainstream SaaS platforms (like GitHub, Slack, and Linear) support webhooks with comprehensive developer documentation.

A webhook can be understood as an HTTP-based event dispatcher. Once an event-receiving address is configured, these SaaS platforms automatically push event data to the target server whenever a subscribed event occurs.

To handle webhook events from different platforms in a unified way, Dify defines two core concepts: Subscription and Event.

• Subscription: Webhook-based event dispatch requires registering Dify’s network address on a third-party platform’s developer console as the target server. In Dify, this configuration process is called a Subscription.

• Event: A platform may send multiple types of events—such as email received, email deleted, or email marked as read—all of which are pushed to the registered address. A trigger plugin can handle multiple event types, with each event corresponding to a plugin trigger node in a Dify workflow.

Plugin Development

The development process for a trigger plugin is consistent with that of other plugin types (Tool, Data Source, Model, etc.).

You can create a development template using the dify plugin init command. The generated file structure follows the standard plugin format specification.

├── _assets
│   └── icon.svg
├── events
│   └── star
│       ├── star_created.py
│       └── star_created.yaml
├── main.py
├── manifest.yaml
├── provider
│   ├── github.py
│   └── github.yaml
├── README.md
├── PRIVACY.md
└── requirements.txt

• manifest.yaml: Describes the plugin’s basic metadata.

• provider directory: Contains the provider’s metadata, the code for creating subscriptions, and the code for classifying events after receiving webhook requests.

• events directory: Contains the code for event handling and filtering, which supports local event filtering at the node level. You can create subdirectories to group related events.

For trigger plugins, the minimum required Dify version must be set to 1.10.0, and the SDK version must be >= 0.6.0.

Next, we’ll use GitHub as an example to illustrate the development process of a trigger plugin.

Subscription Creation

Webhook configuration methods vary significantly across mainstream SaaS platforms:

• Some platforms (such as GitHub) support API-based webhook configuration. For these platforms, once OAuth authentication is completed, Dify can automatically set up the webhook.

• Other platforms (such as Notion) do not provide a webhook configuration API and may require users to perform manual authentication.

To accommodate these differences, we divide the subscription process into two parts: the Subscription Constructor and the Subscription itself.

For platforms like Notion, creating a subscription requires the user to manually copy the callback URL provided by Dify and paste it into their Notion workspace to complete the webhook setup. This process corresponds to the Paste URL to create a new subscription option in the Dify interface.

To implement subscription creation via manual URL pasting, you need to modify two files: github.yaml and github.py.

github.yaml

Since GitHub webhooks use an encryption mechanism, a secret key is required to decrypt and validate incoming requests. Therefore, you need to declare webhook_secret in github.yaml.

subscription_schema:
- name: "webhook_secret"
  type: "secret-input"
  required: false
  label:
    zh_Hans: "Webhook Secret"
    en_US: "Webhook Secret"
    ja_JP: "Webhookシークレット"
  help:
    en_US: "Optional webhook secret for validating GitHub webhook requests"
    ja_JP: "GitHub Webhookリクエストの検証用のオプションのWebhookシークレット"
    zh_Hans: "可选的用于验证 GitHub webhook 请求的 webhook 密钥"

github.py

First, we need to implement the dispatch_event interface. All requests sent to the callback URL are processed by this interface, and the processed events will be displayed in the Request Logs section for debugging and verification.

In the code, you can retrieve the webhook_secret declared in github.yaml via subscription.properties.

The dispatch_event method needs to determine the event type based on the request content. In the example below, this event extraction is handled by the _dispatch_trigger_event method.

For the complete code sample, see Dify’s GitHub trigger plugin.

class GithubTrigger(Trigger):
    """Handle GitHub webhook event dispatch."""

    def _dispatch_event(self, subscription: Subscription, request: Request) -> EventDispatch:
        webhook_secret = subscription.properties.get("webhook_secret")
        if webhook_secret:
            self._validate_signature(request=request, webhook_secret=webhook_secret)

        event_type: str | None = request.headers.get("X-GitHub-Event")
        if not event_type:
            raise TriggerDispatchError("Missing GitHub event type header")

        payload: Mapping[str, Any] = self._validate_payload(request)
        response = Response(response='{"status": "ok"}', status=200, mimetype="application/json")
        event: str = self._dispatch_trigger_event(event_type=event_type, payload=payload)
        return EventDispatch(events=[event] if event else [], response=response)

Event Handling

Once an event is extracted, the corresponding implementation must filter the original HTTP request and transform it into an input format that Dify workflows can accept.

Taking the Issue event as an example, you can define the event and its implementation through events/issues/issues.yaml and events/issues/issues.py, respectively. The event’s output can be defined in the output_schema section of issues.yaml, which follows the same JSON Schema specification as tool plugins.

issues.yaml

identity:
  name: issues
  author: langgenius
  label:
    en_US: Issues
    zh_Hans: 议题
    ja_JP: イシュー
description:
  en_US: Unified issues event with actions filter
  zh_Hans: 带 actions 过滤的统一 issues 事件
  ja_JP: アクションフィルタ付きの統合イシューイベント
output_schema:
  type: object
  properties:
    action:
      type: string
    issue:
      type: object
      description: The issue itself
extra:
  python:
    source: events/issues/issues.py

issues.py

from collections.abc import Mapping
from typing import Any

from werkzeug import Request

from dify_plugin.entities.trigger import Variables
from dify_plugin.errors.trigger import EventIgnoreError
from dify_plugin.interfaces.trigger import Event

class IssuesUnifiedEvent(Event):
    """Unified Issues event. Filters by actions and common issue attributes."""

    def _on_event(self, request: Request, parameters: Mapping[str, Any], payload: Mapping[str, Any]) -> Variables:
        payload = request.get_json()
        if not payload:
            raise ValueError("No payload received")

        allowed_actions = parameters.get("actions") or []
        action = payload.get("action")
        if allowed_actions and action not in allowed_actions:
            raise EventIgnoreError()

        issue = payload.get("issue")
        if not isinstance(issue, Mapping):
            raise ValueError("No issue in payload")

        return Variables(variables={**payload})

Event Filtering

To filter out certain events—for example, to focus only on Issue events with a specific label—you can add parameters to the event definition in issues.yaml. Then, in the _on_event method, you can throw an EventIgnoreError exception to filter out events that do not meet the configured criteria.

issues.yaml

parameters:
- name: added_label
  label:
    en_US: Added Label
    zh_Hans: 添加的标签
    ja_JP: 追加されたラベル
  type: string
  required: false
  description:
    en_US: "Only trigger if these specific labels were added (e.g., critical, priority-high, security, comma-separated). Leave empty to trigger for any label addition."
    zh_Hans: "仅当添加了这些特定标签时触发（例如：critical, priority-high, security，逗号分隔）。留空则对任何标签添加触发。"
    ja_JP: "これらの特定のラベルが追加された場合のみトリガー（例: critical, priority-high, security，カンマ区切り）。空の場合は任意のラベル追加でトリガー。"

issues.py

def _check_added_label(self, payload: Mapping[str, Any], added_label_param: str | None) -> None:
    """Check if the added label matches the allowed labels"""
    if not added_label_param:
        return

    allowed_labels = [label.strip() for label in added_label_param.split(",") if label.strip()]
    if not allowed_labels:
        return

    # The payload contains the label that was added
    label = payload.get("label", {})
    label_name = label.get("name", "")

    if label_name not in allowed_labels:
        raise EventIgnoreError()
        
def _on_event(self, request: Request, parameters: Mapping[str, Any], payload: Mapping[str, Any]) -> Variables:
    # ...
    # Apply all filters
    self._check_added_label(payload, parameters.get("added_label"))

    return Variables(variables={**payload})

Subscription Creation via OAuth or API Key

To enable automatic subscription creation via OAuth or API key, you need to modify the github.yaml and github.py files.

github.yaml

In github.yaml, add the following fields.

subscription_constructor:
  parameters:
  - name: "repository"
    label:
      en_US: "Repository"
      zh_Hans: "仓库"
      ja_JP: "リポジトリ"
    type: "dynamic-select"
    required: true
    placeholder:
      en_US: "owner/repo"
      zh_Hans: "owner/repo"
      ja_JP: "owner/repo"
    help:
      en_US: "GitHub repository in format owner/repo (e.g., microsoft/vscode)"
      zh_Hans: "GitHub 仓库，格式为 owner/repo（例如：microsoft/vscode）"
      ja_JP: "GitHubリポジトリは owner/repo 形式で入力してください（例: microsoft/vscode）"
  credentials_schema:
    access_tokens:
      help:
        en_US: Get your Access Tokens from GitHub
        ja_JP: GitHub からアクセストークンを取得してください
        zh_Hans: 从 GitHub 获取您的 Access Tokens
      label:
        en_US: Access Tokens
        ja_JP: アクセストークン
        zh_Hans: Access Tokens
      placeholder:
        en_US: Please input your GitHub Access Tokens
        ja_JP: GitHub のアクセストークンを入力してください
        zh_Hans: 请输入你的 GitHub Access Tokens
      required: true
      type: secret-input
      url: https://github.com/settings/tokens?type=beta
  extra:
    python:
      source: provider/github.py

subscription_constructor is a concept abstracted by Dify to define how a subscription is constructed. It includes the following fields:

• parameters (optional): Defines the parameters required to create a subscription, such as the event types to subscribe to or the target GitHub repository

• credentials_schema (optional): Declares the required credentials for creating a subscription with an API key or access token, such as access_tokens for GitHub.

• oauth_schema (optional): Required for implementing subscription creation via OAuth. For details on how to define it, see Add OAuth Support to Your Tool Plugin.

github.py

In github.py, create a Constructor class to implement the automatic subscription logic.

class GithubSubscriptionConstructor(TriggerSubscriptionConstructor):
    """Manage GitHub trigger subscriptions."""
    def _validate_api_key(self, credentials: Mapping[str, Any]) -> None:
        # ...

    def _create_subscription(
        self,
        endpoint: str,
        parameters: Mapping[str, Any],
        credentials: Mapping[str, Any],
        credential_type: CredentialType,
    ) -> Subscription:
        repository = parameters.get("repository")
        if not repository:
            raise ValueError("repository is required (format: owner/repo)")

        try:
            owner, repo = repository.split("/")
        except ValueError:
            raise ValueError("repository must be in format 'owner/repo'") from None

        events: list[str] = parameters.get("events", [])
        webhook_secret = uuid.uuid4().hex
        url = f"https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/hooks"
        headers = {
            "Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.get('access_tokens')}",
            "Accept": "application/vnd.github+json",
        }

        webhook_data = {
            "name": "web",
            "active": True,
            "events": events,
            "config": {"url": endpoint, "content_type": "json", "insecure_ssl": "0", "secret": webhook_secret},
        }

        try:
            response = requests.post(url, json=webhook_data, headers=headers, timeout=10)
        except requests.RequestException as exc:
            raise SubscriptionError(f"Network error while creating webhook: {exc}", error_code="NETWORK_ERROR") from exc

        if response.status_code == 201:
            webhook = response.json()
            return Subscription(
                expires_at=int(time.time()) + self._WEBHOOK_TTL,
                endpoint=endpoint,
                parameters=parameters,
                properties={
                    "external_id": str(webhook["id"]),
                    "repository": repository,
                    "events": events,
                    "webhook_secret": webhook_secret,
                    "active": webhook.get("active", True),
                },
            )

        response_data: dict[str, Any] = response.json() if response.content else {}
        error_msg = response_data.get("message", "Unknown error")
        error_details = response_data.get("errors", [])
        detailed_error = f"Failed to create GitHub webhook: {error_msg}"
        if error_details:
            detailed_error += f" Details: {error_details}"

        raise SubscriptionError(
            detailed_error,
            error_code="WEBHOOK_CREATION_FAILED",
            external_response=response_data,
        )

---

Once you have modified these two files, you’ll see the Create with API Key option in the Dify interface.

Automatic subscription creation via OAuth can also be implemented in the same Constructor class: by adding an oauth_schema field under subscription_constructor, you can enable OAuth authentication.

Explore More

The interface definitions and implementation methods of core classes in trigger plugin development are as follows.

Trigger

class Trigger(ABC):
    @abstractmethod
    def _dispatch_event(self, subscription: Subscription, request: Request) -> EventDispatch:
        """
        Internal method to implement event dispatch logic.

        Subclasses must override this method to handle incoming webhook events.

        Implementation checklist:
        1. Validate the webhook request:
           - Check signature/HMAC using properties when you create the subscription from subscription.properties
           - Verify request is from expected source
        2. Extract event information:
           - Parse event type from headers or body
           - Extract relevant payload data
        3. Return EventDispatch with:
           - events: List of Event names to invoke (can be single or multiple)
           - response: Appropriate HTTP response for the webhook

        Args:
            subscription: The Subscription object with endpoint and properties fields
            request: Incoming webhook HTTP request

        Returns:
            EventDispatch: Event dispatch routing information

        Raises:
            TriggerValidationError: For security validation failures
            TriggerDispatchError: For parsing or routing errors
        """
        raise NotImplementedError("This plugin should implement `_dispatch_event` method to enable event dispatch")

TriggerSubscriptionConstructor

class TriggerSubscriptionConstructor(ABC, OAuthProviderProtocol):
    # OPTIONAL
    def _validate_api_key(self, credentials: Mapping[str, Any]) -> None:
        raise NotImplementedError(
            "This plugin should implement `_validate_api_key` method to enable credentials validation"
        )
        
    # OPTIONAL
    def _oauth_get_authorization_url(self, redirect_uri: str, system_credentials: Mapping[str, Any]) -> str:
        raise NotImplementedError(
            "The trigger you are using does not support OAuth, please implement `_oauth_get_authorization_url` method"
        )
    
    # OPTIONAL
    def _oauth_get_credentials(
        self, redirect_uri: str, system_credentials: Mapping[str, Any], request: Request
    ) -> TriggerOAuthCredentials:
        raise NotImplementedError(
            "The trigger you are using does not support OAuth, please implement `_oauth_get_credentials` method"
        )
    
    # OPTIONAL
    def _oauth_refresh_credentials(
        self, redirect_uri: str, system_credentials: Mapping[str, Any], credentials: Mapping[str, Any]
    ) -> OAuthCredentials:
        raise NotImplementedError(
            "The trigger you are using does not support OAuth, please implement `_oauth_refresh_credentials` method"
        )

    @abstractmethod
    def _create_subscription(
        self,
        endpoint: str,
        parameters: Mapping[str, Any],
        credentials: Mapping[str, Any],
        credential_type: CredentialType,
    ) -> Subscription:
        """
        Internal method to implement subscription logic.

        Subclasses must override this method to handle subscription creation.

        Implementation checklist:
        1. Use the endpoint parameter provided by Dify
        2. Register webhook with external service using their API
        3. Store all necessary information in Subscription.properties for future operations(e.g., dispatch_event)
        4. Return Subscription with:
           - expires_at: Set appropriate expiration time
           - endpoint: The webhook endpoint URL allocated by Dify for receiving events, same with the endpoint parameter
           - parameters: The parameters of the subscription
           - properties: All configuration and external IDs

        Args:
            endpoint: The webhook endpoint URL allocated by Dify for receiving events
            parameters: Subscription creation parameters
            credentials: Authentication credentials
            credential_type: The type of the credentials, e.g., "api-key", "oauth2", "unauthorized"

        Returns:
            Subscription: Subscription details with metadata for future operations

        Raises:
            SubscriptionError: For operational failures (API errors, invalid credentials)
            ValueError: For programming errors (missing required params)
        """
        raise NotImplementedError(
            "This plugin should implement `_create_subscription` method to enable event subscription"
        )

    @abstractmethod
    def _delete_subscription(
        self, subscription: Subscription, credentials: Mapping[str, Any], credential_type: CredentialType
    ) -> UnsubscribeResult:
        """
        Internal method to implement unsubscription logic.

        Subclasses must override this method to handle subscription removal.

        Implementation guidelines:
        1. Extract necessary IDs from subscription.properties (e.g., external_id)
        2. Use credentials and credential_type to call external service API to delete the webhook
        3. Handle common errors (not found, unauthorized, etc.)
        4. Always return UnsubscribeResult with detailed status
        5. Never raise exceptions for operational failures - use UnsubscribeResult.success=False

        Args:
            subscription: The Subscription object with endpoint and properties fields

        Returns:
            UnsubscribeResult: Always returns result, never raises for operational failures
        """
        raise NotImplementedError(
            "This plugin should implement `_delete_subscription` method to enable event unsubscription"
        )

    @abstractmethod
    def _refresh_subscription(
        self, subscription: Subscription, credentials: Mapping[str, Any], credential_type: CredentialType
    ) -> Subscription:
        """
        Internal method to implement subscription refresh logic.

        Subclasses must override this method to handle simple expiration extension.

        Implementation patterns:
        1. For webhooks without expiration (e.g., GitHub):
           - Update the Subscription.expires_at=-1 then Dify will never call this method again

        2. For lease-based subscriptions (e.g., Microsoft Graph):
           - Use the information in Subscription.properties to call service's lease renewal API if available
           - Handle renewal limits (some services limit renewal count)
           - Update the Subscription.properties and Subscription.expires_at for next time renewal if needed

        Args:
            subscription: Current subscription with properties
            credential_type: The type of the credentials, e.g., "api-key", "oauth2", "unauthorized"
            credentials: Current authentication credentials from credentials_schema.
                        For API key auth, according to `credentials_schema` defined in the YAML.
                        For OAuth auth, according to `oauth_schema.credentials_schema` defined in the YAML.
                        For unauthorized auth, there is no credentials.

        Returns:
            Subscription: Same subscription with extended expiration
                        or new properties and expires_at for next time renewal

        Raises:
            SubscriptionError: For operational failures (API errors, invalid credentials)
        """
        raise NotImplementedError("This plugin should implement `_refresh` method to enable subscription refresh")
    
    # OPTIONAL
    def _fetch_parameter_options(
        self, parameter: str, credentials: Mapping[str, Any], credential_type: CredentialType
    ) -> list[ParameterOption]:
        """
        Fetch the parameter options of the trigger.

        Implementation guidelines:
        When you need to fetch parameter options from an external service, use the credentials
        and credential_type to call the external service API, then return the options to Dify
        for user selection.

        Args:
            parameter: The parameter name for which to fetch options
            credentials: Authentication credentials for the external service
            credential_type: The type of credentials (e.g., "api-key", "oauth2", "unauthorized")

        Returns:
            list[ParameterOption]: A list of available options for the parameter

        Examples:
            GitHub Repositories:
            >>> result = provider.fetch_parameter_options(parameter="repository")
            >>> print(result)  # [ParameterOption(label="owner/repo", value="owner/repo")]

            Slack Channels:
            >>> result = provider.fetch_parameter_options(parameter="channel")
            >>> print(result)

Event

class Event(ABC):
    @abstractmethod
    def _on_event(self, request: Request, parameters: Mapping[str, Any], payload: Mapping[str, Any]) -> Variables:
        """
        Transform the incoming webhook request into structured Variables.

        This method should:
        1. Parse the webhook payload from the request
        2. Apply filtering logic based on parameters
        3. Extract relevant data matching the output_schema
        4. Return a structured Variables object

        Args:
            request: The incoming webhook HTTP request containing the raw payload.
                    Use request.get_json() to parse JSON body.
            parameters: User-configured parameters for filtering and transformation
                       (e.g., label filters, regex patterns, threshold values).
                       These come from the subscription configuration.
            payload: The decoded payload from previous step `Trigger.dispatch_event`.
                     It will be delivered into `_on_event` method.
        Returns:
            Variables: Structured variables matching the output_schema
                      defined in the event's YAML configuration.

        Raises:
            EventIgnoreError: When the event should be filtered out based on parameters
            ValueError: When the payload is invalid or missing required fields

        Example:
            >>> def _on_event(self, request, parameters):
            ...     payload = request.get_json()
            ...
            ...     # Apply filters
            ...     if not self._matches_filters(payload, parameters):
            ...         raise EventIgnoreError()
            ...
            ...     # Transform data
            ...     return Variables(variables={
            ...         "title": payload["issue"]["title"],
            ...         "author": payload["issue"]["user"]["login"],
            ...         "url": payload["issue"]["html_url"],
            ...     })
        """

    def _fetch_parameter_options(self, parameter: str) -> list[ParameterOption]:
        """
        Fetch the parameter options of the trigger.

        To be implemented by subclasses.

        Also, it's optional to implement, that's why it's not an abstract method.
        """
        raise NotImplementedError(
            "This plugin should implement `_fetch_parameter_options` method to enable dynamic select parameter"
        )

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