Learn how to create an automation rule for an issue.
Automation rules allow users to automatically respond to events by defining trigger conditions and desired actions to perform once the condition is met. Automation rules can trigger playbooks and Quick Actions. Agentic Response, a feature that allows automation rules to trigger AI agents, is currently in preview and does not appear in your tenant by default. If you would like the Agentic Response feature enabled on your tenant, contact Customer Support.
While per-object access determines who can see, edit, or manually trigger a playbook, any automated execution (including those triggered by automation rules, jobs, or feed-triggered actions) is performed by the system. These actions are not restricted by the organizational scope or object-level access of the user who may have triggered the case. Instead, automated workflows remain governed by the defined scope and permissions of the involved integrations.
Note
In addition to the Automation Rules feature, the XDR Automation menu item is available if you migrated from Cortex XDR 3.x to Cortex XSIAM 5.x and had rules configured in your previous environment.
Location: These legacy rules are located under → → .
Operational but read-only: Existing rules from your Cortex XDR 3.x environment continue to function as originally configured, but they are now read-only. You cannot edit existing legacy rules or create new rules within this section.
Migration: We recommend transitioning your legacy automation logic to the new Automation Rules, found under → → .
Functional difference: Legacy XDR Automation rules allowed for multiple independent actions to be assigned to a single trigger. In contrast, the new Automation Rules trigger a single Playbook or Quick Action per issue.
In the Automation Rules page, you can create or edit an automation rule, use recommended automation rules, edit a playbook, and change the order of priority. You can also delete or disable/enable an automation rule. When you disable an automation rule, the automation does not run for the selected condition.
Note
You can also define the conditions that trigger a specific playbook in the playbook editor. For more information, see Task 2. Configure playbook settings
Create an automation rule for issues where conditions from the automation rule are met, so that the automation, whether it is a Quick Action or a playbook, automatically runs.
For example, if the IF condition is severity=critical and the Then action is the Quick Action - Create Jira Ticket, the automation rule is triggered when a critical severity issue is detected, and then the Jira ticket is created.
Select → → .
Click Add Automation Rule or right-click a rule, select Edit rule, or click the edit button.
Enter a rule name.
(Optional) Provide a short description of the rule.
(Optional) Change the rule status. A rule can be enabled or disabled.
Define the rule conditions:
For If, click Add Condition and from the Issues table, use the filter to set the criteria for the rule, and then click Save.
For example, filter the field Severity, and then select the value Critical. The Issues table returns all issues where the severity=critical.
For Then, click Add Automation.
If you clicked Add Agent, choose an agent from the Select Agent window. You can search for an agent or click on any of the agents shown. Hovering over an agent card shows a summary and the option to click Show agent to view the full list of actions available to the agent.
Choose the playbook or Quick Action to which you have access from the Select Automation window. You can search for an automation or click on any of the Quick Actions and playbooks shown.
Quick Actions: After selecting a Quick Action, you can set action parameters. For the Create Jira Ticket Quick Action, for example, you can enter the Description, Issue Type, Project Key, and Summary.
Note
Quick Actions, by default, run using all available integration instances that contain the command. When selecting a Quick Action for an automation rule, you can instead choose one specific integration instance to use.
For more information on Quick Actions, see Quick Actions.
Playbooks: Click
to view the description and playbook preview.If you want to use a playbook that is not part of your Org Playbooks, show Playbook Catalog for a full list of available playbooks. For more information on playbooks, see Manage playbooks.
The list of available playbooks is filtered based on your access; you will only see playbooks that you own, that have been shared with you, or that are marked as Public. For more information, see Access to playbooks.
Click OK.
Click Create.
In this example, there are a number of issues created called McAfee + Zscaler - Malware Downloaded And Dropped To Disk. These issues are a result of malware, which was detected by the agent. A custom playbook runs these issues, where if action is detected by the ePO, the playbook either quarantines the machine where the malware is detected or closes the investigation if there is no action. We want to create an automation rule to automatically run the playbook when an issue is created.
Create an automation rule called McAfee + Zscaler - Malware Downloaded And Dropped To Disk.
Define the rule conditions.
In the Issues section, filter for the McAfee + Zscaler - Malware Downloaded And Dropped To Disk issues.
The next time an issue is created with the criteria, the playbook runs according to the automation rule.
The case collects issues that automatically run the custom playbook.
Select one of the issues to see that the playbook ran (Work Plan or Case War Room).
After you create an automation rule, the rule is added to the Automation Rules table. In the Automation Rules table, you can do the following:
Set the priority of the automation rules, so when an issue is created, the first rule takes priority, then the second, third, etc. Only the first matching rule is executed.
New rules created manually are added to the bottom of the table.
View details of the automation rules that have been created.
By default, you can see the condition, automation, and the creation dates and source. You can add columns and filters as required. To edit, disable, or delete an automation rule, right-click on the rule.