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This tutorial walks you through creating a simple journey end-to-end: one trigger, one send node, one email. By the end, you’ll have a working journey that sends an email when invoked via API.
Journeys can do much more than send a single email. Add delays to space out messages, branches to send users down different paths, fetch nodes to pull in data from external APIs, or throttles to prevent over-messaging. Once you’re comfortable with the basics, check out Build an Onboarding Journey for a more advanced example.

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Prerequisites

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Build the Journey

1

Create a new journey

Navigate to Journeys and click New Journey. You’ll see the trigger selection screen.
2

Choose the API trigger

Click API. This creates a journey that starts when your code sends a POST request. Courier adds a trigger node to the canvas and opens its configuration panel.
3

Define schema fields

Schema fields define the data contract between your application and this journey. Every invocation must include these fields.Add two fields:
Field nameType
user_nameString
signup_sourceString
Click Add Field for each one, enter the name, select the type, and save. These fields will be available as variables throughout the journey.
4

Add a Send Email node

Drag a Send node from the palette onto the canvas below the trigger, or click the + button on the edge below the trigger node. Select Email as the channel.
5

Create the message template

In the send node’s configuration panel, click + Create next to “Message.” Courier creates a new template and opens the template designer.Design your welcome email:
  1. In the Subject field at the top, type Welcome, then insert the user_name variable so it reads Welcome, {{user_name}}!
  2. In the body editor, add a Text block and write something like Thanks for signing up via {{signup_source}}. We're glad you're here.
Close the designer when you’re done. The send node now shows the template name.
6

Publish the journey

Click Publish in the top-right corner. The journey is now live and ready to receive invocations.

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Invoke the Journey

Copy the journey ID from the URL bar (app.courier.com/journeys/:journeyId/design) and invoke it with your schema fields. 
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_source": "homepage"
    }
  }'
You should get a 202 response with a runId.
Make sure user user_123 has an email address in their Courier profile, or include it in the profile field of the request. Without an email, the send node won’t have a delivery address.

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Inspect the Run

Open your journey and click the Logs tab. You should see the run you just triggered. Click it to open the detail view. The run detail overlays execution status on the journey canvas. You can see that the trigger node started the run and the send node delivered (or attempted to deliver) the email. Click the send node to inspect the payload and delivery status. See Run Inspection for a full guide on debugging runs.

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What’s Next

Build an Onboarding Journey

Multi-step journey with delays, branching, and data enrichment

Starting a Journey

Full reference for API and Segment triggers

Building Your Journey

Reference for all node types: branch, delay, fetch, throttle

Channels & Send

Configure recipients, conditions, and send windows