> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.strangelooplabs.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Getting Started

> How to work with Strange Loop Automations

An Automation is an AI workflow that tells Strange Loop how to process some input.
An input could be plain text, an email, or a PDF document. Each Automation
will define what types of information Strange Loop should look for in the input.

The Automation might also specify some pre and post processing steps to perform
on the input. Optionally, the Automation may also specify where the output
should be sent (e.g. to an email inbox, or an Excel spreadsheet).

Once the Automation has been created, the user can send input to Strange Loop to create
an invocation. An invocation is an execution of an Automation against a particular input.
Each invocation has both an input and an output.

All endpoints require appropriate authentication to invoke.
Refer to the [Authentication Documentation](/automations/authentication) for more details.

Refer to the following guides on interacting with the Strange Loop Automation API:

* [Invoking an Automation with Files](/automations/invoke-automation-file)
* [Invoking an Automation statelessly](/automations/invoke-automation-stateless)
* [Fetching the output of an invocation](/automations/get-invocation)