A scheduled Automation didn't run, or says it did something it didn'tExperimental
First, look at the run history
- Click Automations in the sidebar (on a phone: More → Automations).
- Open the Automation.
- Scroll to History (on a narrow screen, switch to the History tab). Each run shows its status:
| Status | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Completed | The run finished. | Still check what it did. |
| Running | It’s going now. | Wait. |
| Needs you | It stopped to ask for your approval. Nothing waiting has been applied. | Open the run and approve or deny. |
| Failed | It stopped with an error. | Open the run to read why; see below. |
No runs at all? The History section says Hasn’t run yet and when it will first run. Click Run now to try it immediately.
It never ran
| Check | Fix |
|---|---|
| The Automation card shows Paused, or the detail says “Paused — nothing will fire it.” | Open its menu and choose Resume. |
| The detail says “Finished — no runs left on this schedule.” | Its schedule has ended (for example a one-off). Edit the schedule to run again. |
| The app wasn’t running at the scheduled time. | Automations run only while the app is running — a closed laptop or stopped server misses them. When the app starts again, an overdue Automation runs once to catch up; it doesn’t replay every missed run. To keep them on time, leave the app running: the desktop app can keep working in the background, or install a boot service with onw autostart install. |
| No AI provider is connected, or its key stopped working. | Fix it in Settings → AI. Every run needs a model. |
It failed
Open the failed run; the error is shown at the top. Common ones:
“This run exceeded the turn time limit and was stopped before it finished.” The model took longer than allowed — usually a slow provider taking minutes per step.
- Give the Automation a faster model: open it, choose Edit automation from its menu, and change Model (it can differ from your default model).
- Or allow more time: Settings → AI → Turn time limit → Stop a turn after, and choose 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours or No limit (the default is 20 minutes). This applies to every Lucius reply and Automation run.
Anything the run did up to that point was either finished or not applied — nothing is left half-done.
“The server restarted while this Automation was running…” The app was stopped or restarted mid-run (an update, a reboot, or a developer server reloading after a file change). Nothing unconfirmed was applied. Click Run now to run it again.
An error from the AI provider (rate limit, overloaded, invalid key): wait and use Run now, or check your provider settings in Settings → AI.
Check what a run really did
A run’s summary is written by the AI model, and a model can occasionally describe work it didn’t actually do — “I categorized 12 transactions” when nothing changed. This is more common with smaller, cheaper models. So for anything that touches money:
- Open the run and look at the actions it actually took, not just the final message. You can reply to the run to ask it what it changed.
- Look at the real data — the account register, the Plan screen — for the changes it claims.
- If the summary and the data disagree, trust the data. Switch the Automation to a stronger model (its Model setting) and run it again.
Until this page’s status changes from beta, treat any Automation’s report as “probably right, check before you rely on it”.
It changed things without asking me
Each Automation has its own approval setting:
- Manually approve — pauses so you can approve each change (shows as Needs you).
- Automatically approve — runs on its own, pausing only if something looks unsafe.
- Skip all approvals — never pauses.
In Manually approve, an action still runs without asking if it’s on that Automation’s own Always allowed list (tapping Always allow on a card during a run adds it there). To review everything first, use Edit automation and choose Manually approve, then open the Automation and Revoke anything in its Always allowed section. Transactions an Automation logs still wait in your review queue (N to review in Accounts) in every mode. See Automations and Permissions.