A pylon is the central building block in Pylon. Each pylon defines a complete pipeline: what event starts it (trigger), what code the agent works with (workspace), which AI agent runs (agent), and where results are sent (channel). When an event fires, Pylon loads the pylon config, spins up a sandboxed Docker container, runs the agent, and posts the output to your channel.
Config location
Each pylon stores its config at ~/.pylon/pylons/<name>/pylon.yaml. Pylon also keeps a job history database at ~/.pylon/pylons/<name>/jobs.db — a SQLite file that records every job run by that pylon, including status, timestamps, and output.
Complete example
The following is a real-world pylon that triages Sentry errors. When Sentry sends a webhook, Pylon asks you to approve before the agent investigates.
name: sentry-triage
description: Triage Sentry errors for the nexus project
created: 2025-01-15T09:00:00Z
trigger:
type: webhook
path: /sentry-triage
secret: "${SENTRY_CLIENT_SECRET}"
signature_header: Sentry-Hook-Signature
workspace:
type: git-clone
repo: git@github.com:acme/nexus.git
ref: main
channel:
topic: "{{ .body.data.event.title }}"
message: |
{{ .body.data.event.title }}
{{ .body.data.event.culprit }}
{{ .body.data.event.web_url }}
approval: true
agent:
prompt: |
Investigate this Sentry error and suggest a fix.
Title: {{ .body.data.event.title }}
Culprit: {{ .body.data.event.culprit }}
Level: {{ .body.data.event.level }}
Platform: {{ .body.data.event.platform }}
Sentry URL: {{ .body.data.event.web_url }}
timeout: 10m
Fields
| Field | Required | Description |
|---|
name | Yes | Unique identifier for the pylon. Must match the directory name. |
description | No | Human-readable description, shown in pylon list. |
disabled | No | Set to true to pause the pylon without deleting it. |
created | Yes | ISO 8601 timestamp set automatically when the pylon is constructed. |
trigger | Yes | Defines what event starts the pipeline. See Triggers. |
workspace | Yes | Defines how the agent accesses your codebase. See Workspaces. |
agent | No | Configures the AI agent. Falls back to global defaults if omitted. See Agents. |
channel | No | Where results are sent. Falls back to global defaults if omitted. See Channels. |
Managing pylons
Use these commands to work with your pylons:
# List all pylons and their status
pylon list
# Open a pylon's config in your $EDITOR
pylon edit sentry-triage
# Delete a pylon and all its job history
pylon destroy sentry-triage
pylon destroy removes the entire ~/.pylon/pylons/<name>/ directory, including jobs.db. This is irreversible.
Creating pylons from templates
Use pylon construct with the --from flag to start from a pre-built template instead of answering prompts:
pylon construct sentry-triage --from sentry
pylon construct pr-review --from github-pr
pylon construct weekly-audit --from cron-audit
pylon construct my-pylon --from blank
pylon edit <name> to fill in repo URLs, secrets, and any other fields the template left blank.
Disabling a pylon
To pause a pylon without destroying it, set disabled: true in the config:
name: sentry-triage
disabled: true
false to re-enable.