Relays · Ecommerce ops team
RelayD2C brandsA three-Relay ops team for a D2C store, with limits on every action
One AI coworker that watches orders, ads and the support inbox at once gets noisy fast. This architecture splits the job across three Relays that hand work to each other, write to one notes board and move money only inside limits you set.
Valnora & Elric team6 min read
- RelaysAI coworkers with a role, a schedule and approvals before external actions.
- TablesA database, built in, for cases, queues and decisions.
- WorkflowsThe visual builder: blocks, models and integrations wired into agent logic.
- MonitorsWatch a metric and alert the right people when it moves.
- DashboardsCharts, tables and KPI tiles over governed metrics.
- LogsEvery run traced block by block.
A small D2C team usually has one person who watches orders, one who watches ads, and one who answers the support inbox, and on most days they are the same person. A single AI coworker that tries to do all three jobs inherits the same problem: too many triggers, too broad an allowlist, and notes nobody can follow.
This architecture splits the job across a Relay team built from the Ecommerce ops template in Relays. Three Relays each own one area, hand work to each other, write to one shared notes board and report to one owner. Names, amounts and limits below are illustrative.
Three Relays, one notes board, one owner
Relay 1 · Order watcher
- 01Orders tableA webhook workflow writes each Shopify order and status change as a row.
- 02Watch and checkWatches the table every minute or more for stuck, held or unpaid orders and stock gaps.
- 03Cancel and refundCancels unshipped orders with refund inside delegated limits; anything larger waits for approval.
Relay 2 · Ad watcher
- 04Schedule and monitorsRuns each morning, and when a spend or ROAS monitor alerts.
- 05Google Ads and MetaReads Google Ads reports and Meta insights through Meta’s ads server in Tool connections.
- 06Notes and proposalsWrites what changed and why; any budget change waits for the owner’s approval.
Relay 3 · Support triager
- 07Support inboxWatches the Gmail or Outlook support inbox every 5 minutes or more.
- 08Sort and draftLabels each email, looks up the order and drafts a reply for approval.
- 09Hand-offRefund requests go to the order watcher; complaints and anything unclear go to a person.
Who is on the team
The Ecommerce ops template creates five Relays: an Orders Monitor that leads, COD Confirmation, a Courier Watcher, an Ads Analyst and Support Triage. This setup keeps three of them active (orders, ads and support) and pauses the other two until the team is ready. Rename them and edit their instructions in plain words.
- Order watcher. Triggered by a watch on the orders table, checked as often as every minute. A workflow with a Webhook trigger receives Shopify order webhooks and writes one row per order and status change into Tables. Relays read and query tables; they do not write rows, so the workflow keeps that job. The watcher looks for COD orders on hold too long, paid orders not fulfilled within your window, and SKUs about to run out with open orders against them.
- Ad watcher. Runs on a morning schedule in your time zone, and also starts when a monitor on spend or return on ad spend alerts. It reads Google Ads reports through the Google Ads block, which is read and report only. For Meta, it uses Meta’s official ads server, added once under Settings → Tool connections. Tool connections link an AI agent to another product’s tools through MCP, an open standard for that purpose.
- Support triager. Watches the support inbox in Gmail or Outlook, checked as often as every 5 minutes. It labels each email, looks up the order in Shopify and drafts a reply.
Each Relay has its own allowlist of integrations, tool connections and workflows. The ad watcher cannot touch Shopify orders, and the support triager cannot see the ad accounts.
Hand-offs and the notes board
Hand-off rules say who passes what to whom. Three cover most of the day:
- The support triager hands refund and cancellation requests to the order watcher, with the order number and the buyer’s words.
- The ad watcher hands stock questions to the order watcher when an advertised product is running low.
- Anything that reads as a complaint, a legal threat or a safety issue goes to a person, not another Relay.
Every Relay writes what it found and what it did to the team’s shared notes board. It is the first place the owner looks in the morning, and it is how one Relay knows what another already handled.
What the solution produces
Shared notes board, one morning (illustrative)
Checklist- Order watcher · 07:40 · 6 COD orders held for address over 24 h. Listed in the hold queue.
- Order watcher · 07:41 · SKU KRT-204 at 3 units across locations; 11 open orders include it.
- Ad watcher · 08:05 · Prospecting campaign "Kurta sets" spent 38% of daily budget by 08:00. Proposed: no change until noon.
- Ad watcher · 08:06 · Flagged for order watcher: KRT-204 is in 2 live ad sets and nearly out of stock.
- Support triager · 08:20 · 14 emails sorted. 9 order status, 3 refund requests, 2 complaints.
- Support triager · 08:21 · Handed 3 refund requests to order watcher with order numbers.
- Order watcher · 08:30 · 2 refunds inside limits, run in paper mode. 1 above limit, waiting for owner.
Approval request above the delegated limit (illustrative)
Record- Relay
- Order watcher · Operate
- Action
- Shopify Cancel order #58114 · refund to original payment method · restock
- Amount
- ₹7,850 · above the ₹3,000 per-action limit
- Why
- Not yet shipped. Buyer asked to cancel by email at 08:12.
- Class
- Destructive and money-moving · runs once if approved
How actions are classed and limited
Every call a Relay makes is classed as read, write, destructive or spend. Reads run. What happens to the rest depends on the autonomy level:
- Observe: writes are blocked. Good for the first week.
- Assist: writes wait for approval.
- Operate: writes run.
Destructive and money-moving calls, such as cancelling an order with a refund or changing an ad budget, always wait for approval, unless the Relay has delegated limits and the call fits inside them. For the order watcher, a sensible start might be ₹3,000 per action, ₹10,000 per day and ₹40,000 per week, only for unshipped orders the buyer asked to cancel. The Shopify cancel can refund to the original payment method and restock. Anything above a limit becomes an approval request with the exact payload. Approved calls run once and are audited, and approvals expire after 24 hours by default.
Email is stricter. Under Assist and Operate, every email the support triager wants to send needs approval, and the recipient policy starts at internal only. Widen it to an allowlist or to anyone when you are ready.
Paper mode first, and the kill switch
Turn on paper mode before any real money moves. In paper mode, money-moving calls are simulated: the Relay records what it would have refunded or changed, and nothing reaches Shopify or the ad account. Run it for a week or two, read the notes board each morning, and compare the simulated refunds with what your team actually did.
The kill switch pauses one Relay or the whole team at once. Use it during a sale launch, a pricing change, or any time something looks off. When the team resumes, catch-up runs pick up what was missed.
Watching the watchers
The team’s health view shows each Relay’s recent runs, failures and pending approvals, and a daily summary arrives with what each Relay did. By default each Relay runs up to 25 tasks a day and 2 at once, which keeps a bad instruction from turning into a flood. Every workflow run behind the scenes is in Logs.
Controls and governance
Approvals before action
Relays never send email or book meetings without an approval, under any autonomy setting. An approval covers the exact payload the reviewer saw and expires if nobody decides.
Audit trail
Proposals, approvals, declines and executed actions are written to the workspace audit log, which admins can export.
Run logs
Every workflow run records each block’s inputs, outputs and errors, so a reviewer can trace how a result was reached.
Roles and permission groups
Admin, write and read roles per workspace, plus permission groups that limit which models, blocks and integrations a team can use.
Deployed versions
Workflows run from a deployed version, so a change is reviewed before it reaches production runs.
Bring your own keys
Use your organisation’s own model provider keys at organisation or workspace level.
More on how Agent Serve handles access, data and audit on the security page.
For one Relay that investigates store alerts overnight, see operations monitoring with Relays. For the dashboard the team reads from, see the live store dashboard.
What you need
- Shopify connected, plus a webhook workflow that writes orders and status changes to an orders table
- Google Ads connected for reporting, and Meta’s ads server added under Settings → Tool connections if you run Meta ads
- A Gmail or Outlook support inbox the support triager can watch
- Written refund and cancellation rules, and the per-action, per-day and per-week limits you are comfortable delegating
- A store owner or ops lead who approves anything above the limits and checks the daily summary
Questions teams ask
Can a Relay issue a refund on a delivered order?
Not through the built-in Shopify block. Its cancel operation can refund an unshipped order to the original payment method. Refunds on delivered orders stay with a person, or go through your own workflow if you build one with the API block.
Can the ad watcher change budgets?
The Google Ads block is read and report only. Meta’s ads server can create and change campaigns, so any tool that spends money is set to ask before running, and the owner approves it.
Do the Relays write to the orders table?
No. Relays read and query tables. Rows are written by workflows, including any workflow a Relay is allowed to run.