Tutorial: Registry artifact alias automation

Build an automation that runs a webhook when a Registry artifact gets a specific alias like “production”.

This tutorial walks you through building a registry automation triggered by artifact metadata: when an artifact in your registry gets a specific alias (for example, production), W&B sends a POST request to your webhook. Use this pattern to notify downstream systems like deployment pipelines, paging services, or notification channels, whenever you promote a model to a known stage. This tutorial is intended for ML engineers and MLOps practitioners who manage model lifecycles in W&B Registry.

For guidance creating a project automation, see Tutorial: Project run-failure alert automation.

Prerequisites

• A webhook configured in Team Settings.
• A W&B registry with at least one collection, or reuse an existing registry.

Create a registry automation

Set up a registry-scoped automation so that when an artifact in any collection in the registry gets a specific alias (for example, production), W&B sends a POST request to your webhook.

1. Open the registry and click the Automations tab, then click Create automation.
2. Choose the event An artifact alias is added. Enter an Alias regex that matches the alias you care about (for example, production or staging).
3. Click Next step. Set Action type to Webhooks and select your webhook. If the webhook expects a payload, paste a JSON body and use payload variables such as ${artifact_collection_name} and ${artifact_version_string}.
4. Click Next step. Give the automation a name and optional description, then click Create automation.

For more information, see Create a webhook automation (Registry tab).

Test the automation

To confirm that the automation fires end-to-end, trigger the configured event by adding the alias to an artifact version. Add the alias (for example, production) to an artifact version in the registry, using the W&B App or the public API. For example:

import wandb

with wandb.init(project="my-project") as run:
    artifact = wandb.Artifact("my-model", type="model")
    # ... log files or metadata to artifact as needed ...
    run.log_artifact(artifact)
    run.wait()  # Ensure the artifact is logged before proceeding

# Add an alias to the latest version in the collection
api = wandb.Api()
collection = api.artifact_collection(name="my-model", type_name="model")
version = next(collection.versions())  # Get the latest version

version.aliases.append("production")
version.save()
print("Added alias 'production' to", version.name)

Within a short time, your webhook endpoint receives a POST with the payload you configured. You now have a working registry automation that fires whenever a matching alias is applied to an artifact in this registry.

Go further

• Automation events and scopes for all project and registry event types.
• Create a Slack automation and Create a webhook automation for full UI and payload details.