Workflows & Schedules

A Kortex workflow is a multi-step job on your Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) notebooks that you do once and save. Next time, you say its name. A schedule runs it at a set time. MCP is a standard way to let AI apps like Claude or ChatGPT use Kortex's tools.

This needs Kortex Pro. See pricing.

Why use workflows?

Think of a recipe card. The first time you cook, you work it out. After that, you pin the card up and follow it. A workflow is the card, and your assistant is the cook.

• A job you repeat becomes one short sentence.
• A step can wait. An Audio Overview takes minutes, and a later step will not start until it exists.
• A schedule can run it for you at a set time.

How to make a workflow

You do not write a workflow in a settings file. You do the job once by asking your assistant, then ask it to keep the job.

1. Ask your assistant to do the whole job, every step, in order. An example is below.
2. Check that it did what you wanted.
3. Ask your assistant to save it. The second example shows how.

Add these five URLs to my Competitor notebook, wait until they
finish processing, then generate a briefing doc and export it to
Google Docs.

Save that as a workflow called "Competitor brief"

What is saved is the list of steps that actually ran, not your sentence. So "run my competitor brief" does the same steps again.

Make it reusable

You can name a value as an input, such as a notebook or a subject. Then one workflow works for many targets:

Save that as "Set up a course notebook", and make the subject an input

Later, say "run set up a course notebook for Organic Chemistry". If you leave out a needed input, your assistant tells you what is missing. It does not run a half-set-up job.

How to run a workflow

1. Ask your assistant to run it by name. For example: "run my weekly digest".
2. Or ask which workflows you have. A panel opens in the chat. Pick one.
3. It asks for any inputs, and shows the steps it is about to run, before anything happens.

Where do I find my workflows?

Open Workflows in the dashboard sidebar. You cannot build them here, because that is what the chat is for. But you can see what exists, copy the phrase that runs each one, and put one on a clock.

• Each card shows what the workflow takes, how many steps it has, and how often it ran.
• Click the arrow on a card to open it. You see its inputs, its steps and its recent runs on this computer.
• The Copy button copies the phrase that runs it.
• Delete workflow removes it. That cannot be undone.

The steps are the real jobs that run. Values that change are left as blanks. {{notebook_id}} is the input you give. {{steps.0.session_id}} means step 2 uses something step 1 made. That is how a later step can use an answer or a file from an earlier one.

Which jobs are worth saving as workflows?

Each is one thing to say, with several jobs behind it. Say it, check it worked, then save it.

Research

• "Add these URLs to my Competitor notebook, wait until they finish processing, generate a briefing doc, and export it to Google Docs."
• "Generate an Audio Overview of this notebook, wait for it to finish, add it to my Papers podcast, and give me the feed URL."
• "Read the summary of every source in this notebook and tell me which ones are about pricing, then tag those."
• "Ask my Pricing, Support and Product notebooks what changed this week, and save the combined answer as a note in my Weekly notebook."
• "Compare my two research notebooks by source, tell me what only one of them has, and move those sources into the other."
• "Search my library for anything about the Henderson account, ask the notebook you find what the current status is, and save the answer as a note."

Studying

• "Generate a study guide, a flashcard deck and a quiz from this notebook."
• "Create a notebook called Organic Chemistry, apply my course template, tag it #coursework, and move it into my Semester 2 collection."
• "Import this YouTube playlist into a new notebook, wait for the transcripts to process, then generate a briefing doc."
• "List the sources added to this notebook in the last week, then generate a quiz from just those."
• "Generate a slide deck from this notebook, export it, and save the export link as a note."

Work

• "Create a notebook for Acme Corp from my client template, add these three documents, tag it #client, and file it in my Clients collection."
• "Ask my support notebook this customer question, then draft a reply using the answer and its citations."
• "Add these meeting notes as a source, ask the notebook what decisions were made this quarter, and save that as a note."
• "Generate a briefing doc for this notebook, export it to Google Docs, then share the notebook with my team as viewers."
• "Import every URL in this list, tell me which ones failed, and delete the ones that came back empty."

Housekeeping

• "Find every source in this notebook that failed to process, delete them, then refresh the notebook."
• "Give me a library health report, then save it as a note in my Admin notebook."
• "List every notebook with no tags, read what each one is about, and tag them."
• "Run a duplicate scan across my library and show me the pairs." (It reports. It never deletes.)
• "List every source I have never opened, grouped by notebook, and save that list as a note."

How do I run a workflow on a schedule?

A schedule runs a job on a clock instead of when you ask. You say when, once.

Every Monday at 8, generate an Audio Overview of my Research
notebook and add it to my Papers podcast

If the job has many steps, save it as a workflow first, then schedule that.

How to schedule from the dashboard

1. Open Workflows in the dashboard.
2. Click Schedule on the workflow's card.
3. Under How often, choose how often it runs.
4. Under At, choose the hour.
5. Fill in anything the workflow needs, such as which notebook.
6. Click Schedule.

Fill in the inputs now. A scheduled run has nobody to ask, so a notebook must be chosen now, not at 09:00 when nobody is watching.

This makes an automation rule with a Run a workflow action. You will find it under Automation, and see Automation Rules.

Worth scheduling

• "Every Monday at 8, generate an Audio Overview of my Research notebook and add it to my Papers podcast."
• "Every night, ask my course notebook what was added today and save the answer as a source."
• "Every morning at 7, ask my three client notebooks what changed and save one combined digest as a note."
• "Every day, re-read the Google Docs linked in my Team notebook."
• "Every Friday, save a library health report as a note in my Admin notebook."
• "Every Sunday, generate a study guide from my course notebook."
• "Every hour, run my 'New sources' workflow."

Good to know

• How often. Every hour, every day at an hour you choose, or one weekday each week. There is no "every fifteen minutes".
• Timing. Kortex checks every fifteen minutes, so a rule starts within that window of its hour. Times use your computer's local clock.
• Chrome. Schedules start from Chrome. It can be minimised, and no notebook tab has to be open. But a closed laptop runs nothing.
• Scope. By default a schedule applies to every notebook in your account. Narrow it to one notebook, a tag or a collection unless you really mean all of them.
• Loops. An action cannot start its own rule again, and the same event within a minute counts once. A rule that watches for a tag and also adds that tag runs once, not forever.
• History. Every run is recorded, with what started, which steps ran and what failed. Runs are kept on this computer.

While something runs, the pill in the dashboard's top bar (for example 2 running) shows it step by step. It keeps the result there until you dismiss it. Dismissing a row only hides it.

Be careful with deleting jobs

A scheduled run happens with nobody watching. A workflow that deletes will delete on its schedule. Read the steps before you put one on a clock, and keep jobs that cannot be undone as workflows you run by hand.

Related: What your assistant can do, Automation Rules, Agents.