Auto-Apply Rules - Craft Agents

Auto-apply rules automatically scan user messages and apply labels with extracted values. Configure regex patterns on any label to trigger automatic tagging — no manual work needed. For example, paste a Linear issue URL and the session gets auto-tagged with the issue key. Mention a dollar amount and a budget label appears.

Configuration

Add autoRules to any label in your labels/config.json:

{
  "id": "linear-issue",
  "name": "Linear Issue",
  "color": "purple",
  "valueType": "string",
  "autoRules": [
    {
      "pattern": "linear\\.app/[\\w-]+/issue/([A-Z]+-\\d+)",
      "valueTemplate": "$1",
      "description": "Matches Linear issue URLs"
    },
    {
      "pattern": "\\b([A-Z]{2,5}-\\d+)\\b",
      "valueTemplate": "$1",
      "description": "Matches bare issue keys like CRA-123"
    }
  ]
}

Rule Properties

Property	Type	Required	Description
`pattern`	string	Yes	Regex with capture groups. Uses JavaScript regex syntax.
`flags`	string	No	Regex flags (default: `gi` — global, case-insensitive). `g` is always enforced.
`valueTemplate`	string	No	Template using `$1`, `$2` for capture group substitution. If omitted, uses first capture group.
`description`	string	No	Human-readable description of what this rule matches.

Regex Patterns

Rules use JavaScript regular expressions with capture groups:

{
  "pattern": "github\\.com/([\\w-]+/[\\w-]+)/pull/(\\d+)",
  "valueTemplate": "$1#$2",
  "description": "Matches GitHub PR URLs → repo#number"
}

Capture groups: $1, $2, etc. are replaced with matched groups in valueTemplate
Global matching: The g flag is always enforced, so all occurrences in a message are found
Multiple matches: "CRA-1 and CRA-2" produces two label entries on the same label

Evaluation Behavior

When are rules evaluated?

Rules run when a user message is sent (both fresh messages and queued messages). Only user messages are scanned — assistant output and tool results are not.

Code block stripping

Content inside fenced code blocks (```) and inline code (`) is stripped before evaluation. This prevents false matches on code examples.

Deduplication

The same label+value combination won’t be added twice to a session. If "linear-issue::CRA-123" already exists, mentioning CRA-123 again is a no-op.

Match limit

Maximum 10 matches per message to prevent label explosion from pasted data (e.g., a log file with hundreds of issue keys).

Multiple rules per label

All rules on a label are evaluated. All matches across all rules are collected and applied.

Error handling

Invalid regex patterns are skipped at runtime and logged as warnings. Patterns are also validated at config-save time.

Value Normalization

Extracted values are normalized based on the label’s valueType:

valueType	Raw Capture	Normalized
`string`	`CRA-123`	`CRA-123` (pass-through)
`number`	`$45,000`	`45000` (strip symbol + commas)
`number`	`1.5M`	`1500000` (expand suffix)
`number`	`50k`	`50000` (expand suffix)
`date`	`2026-01-30`	`2026-01-30` (pass-through)

Full Example

A workspace that auto-tags Linear issues, deadlines, contacts, and budgets:

{
  "version": 1,
  "labels": [
    {
      "id": "linear-issue",
      "name": "Linear Issue",
      "color": "purple",
      "valueType": "string",
      "autoRules": [
        {
          "pattern": "linear\\.app/[\\w-]+/issue/([A-Z]+-\\d+)",
          "valueTemplate": "$1",
          "description": "Linear URLs"
        },
        {
          "pattern": "\\b([A-Z]{2,5}-\\d+)\\b",
          "valueTemplate": "$1",
          "description": "Bare issue keys"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "deadline",
      "name": "Deadline",
      "color": "orange",
      "valueType": "date",
      "autoRules": [
        {
          "pattern": "(\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2})",
          "valueTemplate": "$1",
          "description": "ISO dates (YYYY-MM-DD)"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "contact",
      "name": "Contact",
      "color": "blue",
      "valueType": "string",
      "autoRules": [
        {
          "pattern": "([\\w.+-]+@[\\w.-]+\\.[a-zA-Z]{2,})",
          "valueTemplate": "$1",
          "description": "Email addresses"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "budget",
      "name": "Budget",
      "color": "green",
      "valueType": "number",
      "autoRules": [
        {
          "pattern": "\\$([\\d,.]+[kKmMbB]?)",
          "valueTemplate": "$1",
          "description": "Dollar amounts"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

With this config:

Pasting https://linear.app/team/issue/CRA-456 adds linear-issue::CRA-456
Typing deadline is 2026-03-15 adds deadline::2026-03-15
Mentioning reach out to alice@example.com adds contact::alice@example.com
Writing budget is $50k adds budget::50000

Validation

Always validate after creating or editing auto-rules. Invalid regex patterns (including ReDoS-vulnerable patterns) are rejected at save time.

config_validate({ target: "labels" })

​Configuration

​Rule Properties

​Regex Patterns

​Evaluation Behavior

​Value Normalization

​Full Example

​Validation

Configuration

Rule Properties

Regex Patterns

Evaluation Behavior

Value Normalization

Full Example

Validation