---
title: Workflow Automation
description: An overview of Mergify Workflow Automation and its capabilities to automate your pull request process.
---

Mergify Workflow Automation is a rule-based system that automates pull request
tasks using `pull_request_rules` in your Mergify configuration file.

## How It Works

Mergify evaluates the state of a pull request rather than individual events.
This means it checks the current status of a pull request and acts based on
defined conditions. This behavior is known as "edge triggering."

An action will only be re-triggered for a pull request if the state flips back
from being unmatched to matched.

:::note
  Mergify never evaluates rules for pull request drafts it creates while
  processing the [merge queue](/merge-queue).
:::

## Reference

- [Rule Syntax](/workflow/rule-syntax) for the `pull_request_rules` format

- [Actions](/workflow/actions) for the full list of available actions

- [Configuration File](/configuration/file-format) for the overall config
  structure