Navigation
Navigation
Section titled “Navigation”Start a workflow on browser navigation — when a tab is created, its URL changes to match a pattern, or it is closed.
What it does
Section titled “What it does”Page Load only covers one case: a full page finishing loading. Navigation broadens that to tab lifecycle events (created, updated, removed) and to URL-pattern matching, so a workflow can react to a user moving around the browser, not just to a single load.
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”- Run automation whenever the user lands on any URL under a pattern such as
https://github.com/*/pull/*. - React when a tab is opened or closed, independent of what page it shows.
Inputs and settings
Section titled “Inputs and settings”| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| URL Patterns | One or more match patterns (glob-style, e.g. https://*.example.com/*, or <all_urls>). Applied to the tab’s URL for created and updated events. |
| Events | Which tab events fire the trigger: Created, Navigated (URL changed), and/or Closed. |
Outputs
Section titled “Outputs”Starts the workflow and passes trigger context to downstream nodes:
triggerType—"navigation".event—"created","updated", or"removed".url,title,tabId,windowId— details of the tab (a closed tab reports only its id).
Dependencies and credentials
Section titled “Dependencies and credentials”- No credential is required.
- Uses the already-held
tabspermission — no extra permission is needed.
Example workflow
Section titled “Example workflow”Create a workflow with Navigation as the first node (Events: Navigated, URL Patterns: https://mail.google.com/*), then connect the actions that should run each time the user opens a mail URL.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”- A Closed event has no reliable URL, so it matches on the event alone rather than on a URL pattern.
- Single-page apps that change the URL with the History API (
pushState) without a full navigation are not yet detected — that needs thewebNavigationpermission and is a planned follow-up. Navigation fires on the URL changes the browser reports as tab updates.