What Is a Clay Run Condition?
A Clay run condition is a rule that determines whether an enrichment should execute for a row. It evaluates available values and allows the operation when its condition is true. Conditions help avoid unnecessary lookups, missing-input errors and actions on records that do not qualify.
By LeadHaste Editorial · AI-assisted editorial review ·
A condition controls execution
Suppose an email lookup needs a person's name and company domain. A condition can require both inputs and require the current email field to be empty. Records without the inputs can stay skipped until the missing information is resolved.
This differs from a filter that changes which rows you see. Hiding a row does not, by itself, document an execution rule for an enrichment. Put the qualification requirement on the operation that must obey it, and verify the rule in the actual run settings.
A conceptual qualification rule
Imagine a company fit field with three states: qualified, disqualified and needs review. A contact lookup should run only for qualified companies with a usable website. Unknown fit should remain unknown rather than quietly counting as qualified.
The exact formula depends on the table's field names and values. Test records for each state, including blank inputs and a prior result. A condition that works on one populated example can still run unexpectedly on an empty or differently formatted row.
Conditions and automatic execution work together
Clay supports table-level and column-level auto-run settings as well as conditional runs. A condition being true does not override a disabled automatic-run setting. Conversely, enabling auto-run does not make an operation useful when a required input is missing.
When a column appears idle, inspect those controls separately. Check whether it is eligible to run automatically, whether the condition evaluates as expected, and whether an existing-result setting prevents another execution. The reason matters before anyone tries to solve the issue by rerunning the entire table.
Protect downstream actions
For a CRM update or sequencer export, qualification alone may be insufficient. You may also need a verified contact field, a suppression check and a stable external identifier. Conditions can encode prerequisites, but they do not replace validation or the destination system's duplicate protection.
Keep a small test set covering allowed, skipped and error cases. Review what changed after an upstream edit and what a repeat execution would do. Record the rule in plain language beside the workflow so an operator can distinguish an intentional skip from a broken column.
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