A scenario is an automated flow that runs on your behalf. When someone comments on your post, replies to your story, sends you a DM, or does anything else you've set up, the scenario fires and carries out a sequence of steps for that person. Most people call these "automations" or "bots." In Inrō they're called scenarios.
How a scenario works
Every scenario has two parts: a trigger and one or more actions.
The trigger is the event that starts the flow. It could be a comment on your post, a DM that contains a keyword, someone clicking a referral link, or a contact being added to a folder. A single scenario can have several triggers, so one flow can start from more than one entry point.
The actions are what happen next: send a message, ask a question, share a tracked link, collect an email, update a contact's record, or hand the conversation to your AI Agent. Actions run in order, and they can branch based on how the contact responds.
Scenarios run per contact
Each person who triggers a scenario gets their own private run of the flow, called an execution. Two people can be partway through the same scenario at the same time without affecting each other.
While a scenario is running for a contact, it takes priority over the AI Agent. If your agent is set to reply to all messages, it holds back until the scenario finishes or hands the conversation over on purpose. This keeps your structured flow and your agent from talking over each other.
The two ways to build a scenario
You can build a scenario two ways:
Comment to DM link is a guided wizard for the most common pattern: someone comments on your post and you follow up in their DMs. It walks you through a fixed set of steps with live previews.
Custom scenario is a blank canvas where you pick any trigger and build any sequence of actions, with branching as deep as you need.
Both produce the same kind of scenario underneath. You can convert a Comment to DM scenario into a Custom one later if you outgrow the wizard. See Quick Start: Your First Scenario for a step-by-step walkthrough.
Scenarios, campaigns, and the AI Agent
These three tools overlap, so it helps to know when to reach for each:
Scenarios are reactive. They fire when a contact does something specific and follow a path you designed in advance. Best for repeatable flows like sending a freebie after a comment or qualifying a story reply.
Campaigns are proactive. You pick an audience and send them a message. There's no trigger, you start the conversation. Best for announcements and re-engagement. See What Are DM Campaigns?.
The AI Agent handles open-ended conversations where replies are unpredictable. It reads context and answers dynamically. Best for sales, qualification, and support.
They work together. A scenario can hand a conversation to the AI Agent partway through, and a campaign can use the same branching actions a scenario does.
Key settings every scenario has
These settings apply to the whole scenario, not to a single step. You'll find them in the flow builder's side panel.
Active toggle. A scenario does nothing until you turn it on. On the free plan you can have up to 3 active scenarios at once; inactive ones don't count, and Pro removes this cap.
Limit frequency per contact. Off by default. Turn it on to run the scenario at most once per contact, or once every set number of minutes, hours, or days for the same person.
Exclude specific folders. The scenario skips contacts who are in the folders you choose. The most common use is excluding a "Customer" folder from your lead-generation flows. If a contact enters an excluded folder partway through, their run stops.
Test mode. Every scenario has a test code and a "test scenario" option so you can run the whole flow on yourself or a chosen contact before activating. Test runs send real messages but are kept out of your metrics.
For the full settings panel and the canvas itself, see The Flow Builder: Visual Editor Tips & Tricks.
Common examples
Comment-to-DM lead capture. Trigger on any comment with a keyword, reply to the comment publicly, then DM the contact a freebie link and follow up if they don't click.
Story reply qualification. Trigger on a story reply, ask a qualifying question with buttons, then route the contact to a booking link or a different message based on their answer.
Folder-based welcome. Trigger when a contact lands in your "New Lead" folder, send a welcome message, wait for a reply, and pass the conversation to your AI Agent if they engage.
🐾 Netsuke's Tips
A scenario can have several triggers, so one flow can fire from both a comment and a referral link. You don't need a separate scenario for every entry point.
Pausing a scenario doesn't cancel runs already in progress. Contacts who are partway through finish their flow; only new triggers stop firing.
You can start one scenario from inside another with the Trigger a scenario action. This is how you chain flows, like firing a re-engagement sequence when someone doesn't finish onboarding.
If you run several scenarios that could fire for the same person, group them so you control which one wins. See scenario groups in How to use Scenario Groups?.
What's next?
Now that you know how scenarios work, learn every way one can start. Read Triggers: The Complete Reference, or jump into the canvas with The Flow Builder: Visual Editor Tips & Tricks.