Bento

Written lesson

This lesson is text-only. Use the guide below to work through it.

Test and ship your flows

Test flows reliably, use inbound webhooks and field-based delays, and ship automations without surprises.

You've built flows with events, sequences, tags, fields, emails, Liquid, and branching.

This lesson is about testing and shipping those automations: catching mistakes before real subscribers hit them, and using a few operational features that make flows faster and easier to maintain.

For magic splits and branching strategies, see Liquid overview and Advanced Flow Branching. This page stays focused on net-new operational guidance.

Test before you go live

You already used Bento's flow test suite in the Flow With Events, Tags, Fields, & Emails lesson and the Run panel in Advanced Flow Branching.

Baseline checklist every time:

  1. Keep the flow in Draft until wiring is done
  2. Build a test trigger chain when the flow depends on specific event details (you cannot attach details when firing events from a subscriber profile)
  3. Run the built-in Test / Run tools and confirm each step in the log
  4. Check the subscriber profile afterward: tags, fields, sequence membership, and inbox delivery
  5. Set the flow to Active only after one clean end-to-end run

For the full reference, see How to Test Email Flows.

Injecting test triggers mid-chain

In Advanced Flow Branching, you built test triggers at the top of a flow to fire the entire chain with spoofed event details.

Sometimes you only need to test one section deep in the flow: a delay node, a branch, or a single email step.

Technique: drop a temporary Event Received trigger partway down the chain, right before the segment you want to test.

Give it a distinctive event name like test_debug_delay_section, fire that event on a test subscriber, and watch just that part of the flow run.

Remove the temporary trigger once the section checks out.

Exact matching on event triggers

Event triggers use contains matching by default. Broad names can overlap specific ones (see Events & Flows Overview).

When word-based matching is too loose, use the Advanced: Liquid filter on the trigger. Write an expression that outputs true or false using event.type, event.details.*, or visitor.*.

Preset buttons cover common patterns (status equals, amount greater than, and similar). If you set both basic word matching and a Liquid filter, both must pass.

Full examples live in Advanced Flow Branching.

Time triggers and custom field delays

Basic delays (fixed wait, wait until time of day) are in Events & Flows Overview.

Field-based delays wait until a date stored on the subscriber profile:

  • Trial expiration: trial_ends_at on signup, then a "trial ending soon" email on that date
  • Onboarding milestones: created_at plus a 30-day check-in
  • Renewal reminders: subscription_renewal_date minus seven days

Store the target date on the profile when your app or integration knows it. The flow waits until that date arrives instead of guessing from entry time.

Global environment variables (ENVs)

ENVs are site-level variables referenced anywhere with Liquid:

{{ ENV.VARIABLE_NAME }}

See Liquid overview for syntax. Operationally, ENVs are how you avoid hunting down hardcoded values across many emails:

  • Mailing address for CAN-SPAM footers
  • Current promo code or offer copy
  • Launch "spots remaining" counters
  • Support or help-desk URLs

Update the ENV once; every reference updates.

Inbound webhooks

Normally, external tools reach Bento through middleware (n8n, Zapier, Make) that transforms data and fires an API event.

Inbound webhooks skip the middle layer for simple cases:

  1. Add an Inbound Webhook trigger to a flow
  2. Copy the unique URL Bento generates
  3. Point the external tool's webhook at that URL
  4. When data arrives, the flow starts (and creates the subscriber if needed)

Example: Calendly books a demo → webhook hits your Bento flow → tag, field update, and prep email fire immediately.

This does not replace a full automation platform when you need heavy transformation between systems. It does remove an extra hop for "something happened in Tool X, start this flow."

Performance note: prefer magic splits

Standard if/then splits add roughly a 5-minute processing delay per split. Magic splits evaluate almost instantly.

See Liquid overview for syntax. Default to magic splits for routing unless you have a specific reason not to.

What's next

The last Intermediate Skills lesson is Imports, Backfills, and Bulk Operations. That covers getting data in safely and running transformations across existing subscribers without blasting the wrong people.

After Intermediate, continue to How the real-life examples work to see complete production setups.

When to move on

  • You have a repeatable test workflow: draft, test chain, Run panel, profile check, then activate
  • You know when to add a mid-chain test trigger vs. a top-level test chain
  • You know inbound webhooks and field-based delays exist and when each helps
  • You know ENVs replace copy-pasted constants across emails and flows
  • You are ready for safe imports and backfills in the next lesson