# Conditions: reacting to one value

**Category:** [Project Manager](https://help.totalctrl.app/hc/totalctrl/totalctrl-help-center/en-US/categories/project-manager)
**Updated:** 2026-08-19

## What a condition does

A trigger says *something* changed. A condition narrows it to the case you mean. "When a task's status changes" fires on every move; add *and the new value is "Done"* and it fires only when the task reaches Done.
## What you can test

- **the new value** and **the previous value** — on any trigger that has a before and an after.
- **status**, **priority**, **assignee**, **group**, **task title** — the state of the task at the moment the rule ran.
- **custom field name** — on the custom-field trigger, so you can watch one field.
- **label** — on the label triggers.

## The list changes with the trigger

Only fields the chosen trigger actually carries are offered. This matters: a condition on a field that is not in the payload would never match, and the rule would sit in the list looking live while doing nothing. If you build one over the API it is refused rather than saved.
## Operators

**is**, **is not**, **contains**, **is empty**, **is not empty**. Values are compared as text and are not case-sensitive for column names.
## More than one condition

This page takes one condition, which covers most rules. For several conditions, branches, or a delay between steps, open the rule in Orchestration — it is the same rule, with the full builder around it.

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## Related Articles

- [Subscribing to project events with webhooks](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-automation-webhooks)
- [Project Manager overview](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-manager-overview)
- [Working with Tasks](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/working-with-tasks)
- [Every trigger, and what it carries](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-automation-triggers)
- [Why isn't my automation running?](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-automation-troubleshooting)

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