Started inserting automation run when member signs up

[EvanHahn]

towards https://linear.app/ghost/issue/NY-1286
ref #28120

I recommend reviewing this with whitespace changes disabled.

When a member signs up, we should trigger an automation run and possibly insert a new row.

Nothing happens yet when these rows are inserted. That will be done in a future change.

This is development-only; triggering is a no-op in production.

I tested this by:

• Adding automated tests.

• Verified that the old member welcome email is still sent on member signup.

• Creating this temporary endpoint and verifying that the results looked expected after member signup:

  router.get('/automations/database-dump', (_req, res) => {
      const db = getTemporaryFakeAutomationsDatabase();
      res.json({
          automation_runs: db.prepare('SELECT * FROM automation_runs').all(),
          automation_run_steps: db.prepare('SELECT * FROM automation_run_steps').all()
      });
  });

[coderabbitai]

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ℹ️ Recent review info

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 66fb886 and b257018.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• ghost/core/core/server/services/automations/automations-api.ts
• ghost/core/core/server/services/gifts/gift-service.ts
• ghost/core/core/server/services/members/members-api/members-api.js

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (1)

• ghost/core/core/server/services/gifts/gift-service.ts

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)

• ghost/core/core/server/services/automations/automations-api.ts

---

Walkthrough

This PR adds a public automationsApi.trigger(options) entrypoint (event restricted to 'member_sign_up'), a repository-level trigger implementation that schedules automation runs/steps based on the first eligible action revision and action type (wait/send_email), ES-module and schema updates for the temporary fake automations DB, MemberRepository wiring to call the new trigger (while preserving the legacy welcome-email enqueue path), GiftService updates to use the new method for paid signups, and unit tests covering repository and integration behaviors.

Possibly related PRs

• TryGhost/Ghost#28170: Both PRs tie into the StartAutomationsPollEvent flow: one dispatches the event after trigger, the other updates the poll handler.
• TryGhost/Ghost#28243: Both PRs modify member-repository.test.js to exercise the automationsApi.trigger-based member-signup automation path.
• TryGhost/Ghost#27872: Both PRs use the automations labs/feature flag to change welcome-email/automation behavior.

Suggested labels

ok to merge for me

Suggested reviewers

• troyciesco
• cmraible

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately describes the main change: adding logic to insert automation run records when a member signs up, which aligns with the file-level changes across automations-api, automations-repository, and member-repository.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description is directly related to the changeset, explaining the purpose (triggering automation runs on member signup), scope (development-only, no-op in production), testing approach, and acknowledging that runtime effects will follow in future work.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch insert-automation-run-when-member-signs-up

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[EvanHahn]

Had to convert this to TypeScript so I could import it from another TypeScript file. (Alternatively, I could've added temporary-fake-database.d.ts, but I think that's strictly worse.

[troyciesco]

hmm...not necessarily something for this PR and I might be over thinking it, but given we talked about moving away from using the slug to identify the automation, I wonder if there's a different way we should do this? Would this involve adding the concept of a trigger node perhaps? (not that i want to overcomplicate it at this step, but could at least be worth thinking about how this should work without slugs since we have a fake db to tinker with)

[EvanHahn]

I agree, but I think this should be done separately. I don't want to build "proper" triggers prematurely, and I don't think this blocks us from doing so.