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A customer asks “where’s my order?”. The AI calls your order-lookup endpoint, reads the status from the response, and replies with the real tracking number. That’s an action — an HTTP call the AI decides to make, authored by you in the OpenCX dashboard.
Ready to build? Skip to Build an action.

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Core Capabilities

Actions are not keyword-triggered. The AI reads the action’s name and description to decide whether the customer’s request matches, then fills in parameters from the conversation. Write the description like you’d write a Jira ticket for a teammate — “look up the order status and return tracking details for a given order ID.”
Each action can be restricted to one or more contact segments. A refund action visible only to VIP customers, an internal-account-tools action visible only to staff contacts — all filtered on the server before the AI sees the tool list.
Once an action is enabled on a channel, it’s available there — widget, email, SMS, WhatsApp, phone, Slack. No per-channel re-authoring.
Build an action from the dashboard form, or upload an OpenAPI spec and generate one action per operation. CI pipelines can push spec changes automatically. See OpenAPI import.

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Where Actions Fit

OpenCX exposes three kinds of tools to the AI. This doc set covers the first.
KindWho authors itLives where
HTTP actionsYou, in the OpenCX dashboardThis doc set
Integration actionsBuilt in per integration (e.g. Shopify AI Actions)Under the relevant integration page
System actionsBuilt-in capabilities (human handoff, send email, collect input, auto-resolve)No configuration — always available

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Next Step

Build your first action

Name, endpoint, parameters, test, enable on a channel.

Build An Action

Dashboard form, fields, test button, channel enablement.

Authentication

Global variables, per-user headers, automatic context headers.

Execution

How a call runs — timeout, retries, response handling.

Troubleshooting

Import failures, 401s, test-passes-prod-fails, AI not calling.