Relays · Store operations
RelayEcommerce operationsAn operations coworker that investigates store alerts before you wake up
A monitor can tell you RTO jumped. It cannot tell you it is one courier, in one state, since Tuesday. A Relay does the first hour of investigation and hands the owner a short brief with a recommendation.
Valnora & Elric team6 min read
- RelaysAI coworkers with a role, a schedule and approvals before external actions.
- MonitorsWatch a metric and alert the right people when it moves.
- TablesA database, built in, for cases, queues and decisions.
- MetricsNamed, reusable measures every chart and agent reads the same way.
- DashboardsCharts, tables and KPI tiles over governed metrics.
- WorkflowsThe visual builder: blocks, models and integrations wired into agent logic.
A good monitor answers one question: did a number cross a line. The owner of a D2C brand then has five more questions before they can act. Which courier? Which region? Since when? Is it the data or the business? What should we do?
Answering those is the first hour of most operations incidents, and it usually happens late at night in a spreadsheet. This post sets up a Relay, an AI coworker in Agent Serve with its own instructions, access and approvals, to do that hour and hand over a short brief.
What the Relay watches
From alert to owner’s brief
Data · Store tables
- 01Orders and NDRsFilled by the Shopify webhook and courier API workflows as events happen.
- 02Stock levelsShopify inventory levels by SKU and location, refreshed on a schedule.
- 03Ad metricsGoogle Ads reports and Meta insights from the API block, by campaign and day.
- 04Instagram commentsComments on recent posts, pulled by a scheduled workflow.
Relay · Store operations
- 05TriggersMonitor alerts checked every 5 minutes, a table watch, and an 8 am schedule.
- 06InvestigateBreaks the spike down by courier, pincode, SKU, campaign or post.
- 07BriefShort brief in the Relay chat with a notification; email copy after approval.
- 08Owner decidesAn email to a courier waits for approval; ad and stock changes wait in the review queue.
The Relay reads tables, and it can also query allowlisted integrations such as Shopify directly. Workflows keep the tables current:
- Orders and NDRs: written as Shopify order webhooks and courier aggregator updates arrive. Aggregators connect through the API block, not native integrations. See non-delivery follow-up.
- Stock: Shopify inventory levels by SKU, read on a schedule.
- Ad metrics: Google Ads campaign performance reports, plus Meta campaign insights from the Marketing API through the API block, with the token stored as a workspace secret.
- Instagram comments: a scheduled workflow lists comments on recent posts with the Instagram block.
The Relay starts three ways. A monitor alert, checked every 5 minutes, on RTO rate, low stock, delivered ROAS or comment volume. A watch on a workspace table, checked as often as every minute, for example new rows in a high-priority NDR table. And a schedule, such as 8 am in your time zone, for a morning summary.
What an investigation looks like
The instructions are plain language, written like a brief to a new ops hire:
When an alert fires, find where the change is concentrated. Compare against the previous four weeks. Check whether a related table explains it. Say what is not the cause. Recommend one action and who should take it. Keep it under 150 words.
Four common cases:
- RTO jump on one courier. It breaks RTO down by courier and pincode, then reads NDR reasons. "Customer not reachable" rising on one courier only points at the courier, not the buyers.
- Stockout on a bestseller. It checks which campaigns still send traffic to that SKU and how many days until the next inbound, if your stock table has it.
- ROAS drop. It separates spend changes from conversion changes, and checks stock and price changes on the products in the ad.
- Instagram comment surge. It reads the comments and groups them: delivery complaints, a sizing question, or a post that went viral for good reasons. Replying stays with your social team.
What the solution produces
Brief after an RTO alert (illustrative)
MemoWhat happened: RTO rate rose from 16% to 23% over 7 days. All of the increase is Courier A in pincodes 80xxxx to 85xxxx.
Evidence: 61% of Courier A NDRs in that region say "customer not reachable", against 30% for Courier B on the same pincodes.
Timing: started Tuesday, the day Courier A’s Patna hub volume doubled per the shipments table.
Not the cause: COD share and order mix in Bihar are unchanged week on week.
Recommendation: route Bihar COD orders to Courier B for a week and raise it with Courier A’s account manager.
Waiting for you: approve an email to Courier A’s account manager (draft attached).
Brief after a ROAS drop (illustrative)
MemoMeta prospecting ad set "Monsoon kurtas · broad" spent ₹38,400 yesterday at 1.1 delivered ROAS, against 2.4 last week.
Its top product, SKU KR-118, went out of stock at 2 pm; the ad kept sending traffic to a sold-out page.
Recommended: pause the ad set until restock, in Ads Manager or in Chat.
Google Ads is unchanged, so no change is recommended there.
How it reports
A Relay reports back in its own chat, with a notification, so the brief is waiting in the app. It can also send the brief by email through Gmail, Outlook or a workspace inbox, and every email waits for approval under Assist or Operate. Start with a recipient policy of internal only. Relays do not post to WhatsApp or Slack themselves and do not place calls. If the right next step is a WhatsApp message to buyers, a workflow the Relay runs does that, or an approved call to the WhatsApp integration; for calls, Agent Inbound & Outbound.
Changes need approval
Set the Relay to Assist. It investigates and recommends; you decide and act. Every call it makes is classed as read, write, destructive or spend. Reads run; on Assist, writes to Shopify or Meta wait in its review queue, and refunds, cancellations and budget changes always do. Writes to tables go through a workflow it runs.
- Meta: the Relay proposes "pause this ad set" through the Meta connection; the pause runs once, after a person approves it.
- Google Ads: read and report only. The Relay recommends; a person makes the change.
- Couriers and suppliers: emails are drafted and wait for approval. Approvals expire after 24 hours by default, so a stale proposal does not run on Friday for a problem from Monday.
Observe is a good first week: the Relay can investigate and report, but email is blocked. Operate lets ordinary writes run without asking, yet email and anything that moves money still need approval, unless it is within delegated limits.
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.
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.
Run logs
Every workflow run records each block’s inputs, outputs and errors, so a reviewer can trace how a result was reached.
SSO and SCIM
Sign in through your identity provider with SAML 2.0 or OIDC, and provision people with SCIM.
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.
Limits that keep it calm
By default a Relay runs up to 25 tasks a day and two at once. Tune monitor thresholds so it investigates real changes, not daily noise. If it fires more than a few times a day, raise the line rather than the limit. The store dashboard remains the place to see the whole picture; the Relay explains the parts that moved.
What you need
- Tables for orders, NDRs, stock, ad metrics and Instagram comments, kept current by workflows
- Monitors on RTO rate, low stock, delivered ROAS and comment volume
- A Gmail, Outlook or workspace inbox for the Relay, with an internal or allowlist recipient policy
- A workflow that writes Meta campaign insights to the ad metrics table through the API block
- Written instructions: what to investigate, what not to touch, and who owns each area
- An owner who reads briefs and decides on approvals within a day
Questions teams ask
Can the Relay message us on WhatsApp or Slack?
Not directly. Relays report in their own chat with a notification and send email, which always needs an approval. Monitor alerts themselves can go to Slack. A WhatsApp send through the integration is a write that waits for approval, or a workflow sends it; calls come from Agent Inbound & Outbound.
Can it change Google Ads budgets?
No. The Google Ads integration is read and report only, so the Relay can pull reports but not change budgets. It recommends a change for a person to make in Google Ads.
How much can it do in a day?
By default a Relay runs up to 25 tasks a day, two at a time. That is plenty for alerts plus a morning summary, and stops a noisy monitor from running it in circles.