A scenario is a single, complete automated workflow, most often the term you meet inside Make (formerly Integromat). It starts with a trigger and runs a chain of connected steps, each doing one small job: pull data from one app, reshape it, push it into another. You build it once on a visual canvas, and it runs on its own from then on.
Picture a recipe card. The first line is the cue to start cooking, and each line after it is a single instruction in order: chop, mix, bake, plate. A scenario is that card for your software. The trigger is the cue, and every module after it is one clear step. Swap an ingredient and you edit one line, not the whole dish.
Each step usually relies on a connector to talk to a specific app like Gmail, Stripe or your CRM. A scenario can stay simple, or it can branch on conditions, loop over a list and handle errors gracefully. A practical example: a new order in Shopify triggers the scenario, it looks the customer up, creates an invoice, then posts a line in Slack so the team sees the sale.
One thing to watch is how a scenario runs: each module passes its output as a “bundle” to the next, so if an early step returns nothing, the rest quietly does nothing too. Good error handling and a clear layout keep that from turning into a silent failure. The same idea exists across tools under different names, but the shape of an automation workflow is the same.
At TopDevs we design each client scenario to be readable, so the next person who opens it can see exactly what runs and why.
