---

name: events-blocks-assets description: "Use Prefect events, automations, blocks, assets, variables, notification blocks, and concurrency limits for operational workflow primitives." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: Apache 2.0

Events Blocks Assets

Use this sub-skill when a task is about operational primitives around a Prefect workflow: custom events, event-triggered automations, notification/webhook blocks, saved block documents, custom block classes, assets and materialization metadata, variables, and global or tag-based concurrency limits.

Start Here

1. Read references/events-automations.md for event schemas, emit_event, automation JSON/YAML shapes, trigger/action fields, deployment-event matching, and server/Cloud requirements.
2. Read references/blocks-assets-concurrency.md for Block.save/Block.load, custom blocks, notification blocks, variables, assets, @materialize, global concurrency limits, tag limits, and sync/async concurrency contexts.
3. Check exact commands in references/cli-reference.md before composing prefect events, prefect automation, prefect block, prefect variable, prefect global-concurrency-limit, or prefect concurrency-limit commands.
4. Run python scripts/validate_automation.py --help to validate automation JSON/YAML locally before prefect automation create or prefect automation update.
5. Read references/troubleshooting.md when diagnosing invalid event resources, automation payload validation, block load/save failures, asset materialization surprises, concurrency timeouts, missing optional block dependencies, or Cloud-only features.

Use For

• prefect.events.emit_event, prefect event emit, prefect events stream, event resources, related resources, payloads, follows, event size limits, and event naming grammar.
• Automation payloads using EventTrigger, MetricTrigger, CompoundTrigger, SequenceTrigger, and actions such as run-deployment, send-notification, call-webhook, pause/resume, cancel/delete/suspend, and Cloud-only incident actions.
• Block.save, Block.load, Block.load_from_ref, custom Block subclasses, block type registration, notification/webhook blocks, secret fields, and block document schema drift.
• Asset, AssetProperties, @materialize, asset_deps, add_asset_metadata, materialization events, and runtime asset metadata expectations.
• Variable.set/Variable.get, prefect variable, global concurrency limits, tag-based task concurrency limits, and prefect.concurrency.sync / prefect.concurrency.asyncio contexts.

Route Elsewhere

• General profile selection, server startup/status, Cloud login, API URL diagnostics, dashboard, and non-events CLI operations: ../cli-server-operations/SKILL.md.
• Basic @flow/@task authoring, retries, caching, futures, local tests, and ordinary task-run state handling: ../flow-task-authoring/SKILL.md.
• Deployment creation, deployment triggers in prefect.yaml, work pools, workers, schedules, and deployment run ownership: ../deployments-workers/SKILL.md.
• Direct get_client, PrefectClient, settings/profile internals, schema models, and the prefect-client package split: ../api-client-settings/SKILL.md.
• Maintainer-only source changes, repo test selection, generated artifacts, and internal event/block/concurrency implementation changes: ../repo-development/SKILL.md.

Safe Validation

• Validate an automation file locally without contacting a Prefect API:

python scripts/validate_automation.py --file automation.yaml

• Print a deployment-event automation template:

python scripts/validate_automation.py --example deployment-event

• Use CLI help checks before running server-mutating commands:

prefect events emit --help
prefect automation create --help
prefect block type ls --help
prefect global-concurrency-limit create --help

Safety Notes

• prefect events stream opens a live event-stream subscription; --account is Cloud/account-wide and can include audit logs.
• prefect events emit, prefect automation create, prefect block save/create/delete, prefect variable set/unset, and concurrency-limit commands mutate server-side or Cloud workspace state.
• Blocks, variables, automations, event streams, and concurrency limits require a reachable Prefect API or Cloud workspace; route profile/API troubleshooting to ../cli-server-operations/SKILL.md.
• Webhook, notification, audit log, and incident workflows may require Prefect Cloud features, credentials, and block documents; keep credentials out of examples and logs.