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This tutorial builds a real onboarding journey: welcome email on signup, wait 24 hours, check if the user completed setup, then send a congratulations email or a reminder nudge depending on the result.

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Prerequisites

  • Familiarity with Create Your First Journey (or comfortable creating a journey from scratch)
  • An email provider configured in your Courier workspace
  • An internal endpoint that returns whether a user completed onboarding (e.g., GET /users/:id/onboarding-status returning JSON with a completed boolean)

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What You’ll Build

Trigger (API)
  → Send: Welcome email
  → Delay: 24 hours
  → Fetch: GET /users/{{user_id}}/onboarding-status
  → Branch:
      ├─ Completed          → Send: Onboarding Complete
      └─ Default            → Send: Reminder Email

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Build the Journey

1

Create a new journey with an API trigger

Navigate to Journeys, click New Journey, and select API as the trigger type.Add the following schema fields:
FieldType
user_nameString
signup_planString
2

Add the welcome email

Drag a Send node onto the canvas below the trigger. Select Email as the channel and click + Create to build the template.Design a welcome message. Set the Subject to Welcome to Courier, {{user_name}}! and add a text block in the body: You're on the {{signup_plan}} plan. Here's how to get the most out of your account...Click the pencil icon next to the template title at the top left and rename it to “Welcome Email.” Close the designer when you’re done.
3

Add a 24-hour delay

Drag a Delay node below the send node. Set the type to Duration and enter 24 hours.This gives the user a day to explore before you check on their progress.
4

Add a fetch node to check onboarding status

Drag a Fetch Data node below the delay. Configure it:
FieldValue
URLhttps://api.yourapp.com/users/{{user_id}}/onboarding-status
MethodGET
Merge StrategySoft Merge
The user_id variable comes from the invocation request, not the trigger schema. If you need it in a fetch URL, add user_id as a String schema field on the trigger and pass it in the data object when invoking.The response should include a boolean field (e.g., { "completed": true }). With Soft Merge, the response fields are added to the journey context without overwriting existing data. Downstream nodes can reference them with the data. prefix.
5

Add a branch node

Drag a Branch node below the fetch node. Configure two paths:Path 1: Completed
  • Field: data.completed
  • Operator: is equal
  • Value: true
Default (automatic fallback)
6

Add the congratulations email

On the “Completed” path, add a Send node for email. Create a template named “Onboarding Complete” with Subject You're all set, {{user_name}}! and a body congratulating them on completing setup.
7

Add the reminder email

On the “Default” path, add a Send node for email. Create a template named “Reminder Email” with Subject Need a hand, {{user_name}}? and a body nudging them to finish setup.
8

Publish and test

Click Publish. Then invoke the journey:
curl -X POST https://api.courier.com/journeys/YOUR_JOURNEY_ID/invoke \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COURIER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "user_id": "user_123",
    "data": {
      "user_name": "Jane",
      "signup_plan": "pro"
    }
  }'
The welcome email sends immediately. After 24 hours, the fetch node checks onboarding status and the branch routes to the appropriate follow-up.

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Testing Without the Delay

During development, set the delay to 1 minute instead of 24 hours so you can test the full flow quickly. Remember to change it back before publishing.

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Inspecting the Run

Open the Logs tab to see the run. Since this journey has a 24-hour delay, the run will show as “Waiting” until the delay expires. After the delay, you can click through each node to see the fetch response, branch decision, and send outcome. See Run Inspection for a full guide on debugging runs.

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What’s Next

Create Your First Journey

Start with the basics: trigger, send, publish, invoke

Building Your Journey

Reference for all node types

Fetch Data

Full reference for HTTP requests and merge strategies

Run Inspection

Step through runs to debug delivery issues