Who this is for: self-serve plans (Free, Starter, Pro, Enterprise). If you bought a Cleanlist AppSumo lifetime deal, your features, limits, and pricing are different. See the AppSumo documentation instead. Support agent: confirm whether the user is self-serve or AppSumo before giving plan-specific advice.

TL;DR: Add steps with Add step on the play canvas. Steps are grouped as Source, Enrich, AI, Logic, CRM and Output. Only Enrich, Validate and the Agents step (skills) cost credits; everything else is free. Each step card shows its price, for example "1 /record". Approve puts a person in the loop, and the Webhook step authenticates with Secrets saved by an admin.

Each record that enters a play runs through its steps in order. Clu adds and configures steps when it builds a play, and you can add or change them yourself with Add step on the canvas. Each step card shows its cost per record or per company.

Get company, Approve, Wait, Code, Webhook and Hand off work only in a play that belongs to an agent, not in a library play.

Finds people matching your filters at each company the play is working on. People per company: 1 to 25 (default 10). Free.

Turns people into one record per company, so later steps (for example a Research skill on the company) run once per company instead of once per person. Company source: Employer or CRM account. Free.

Nothing is charged for an email, phone or profile that isn't found. See Waterfall enrichment.

Verify email and Verify phone, 0.5 credits each per record.

Find meetings adds the next and last Google Calendar meeting with each record. Get Fathom call notes adds the latest Fathom call's summary and action items. Both are free and need the app connected. See Google, Airtable, Notion and Fathom.

The Agents step runs one or more skills on each record:

Routes records down 2 to 6 paths: If, Else if and Else. Each path has its own conditions on record fields, skill outputs or CRM data. A record goes down the first path it matches; the rest fall to Else, and leave the play if no step follows Else. Free.

Holds each record until a person approves or rejects it. Free. Full details in [Approvals](#approvals) below.

Waiting records show under Waiting records on the Runs tab. Free.

Runs JavaScript to compute typed outputs from record fields you declare as inputs. Limits: up to 20,000 characters of code, 1 to 30 inputs, 1 to 12 typed outputs, 3 seconds per batch of records. Code has no network access, cannot import packages and cannot read secrets. Free.

Sends records to another play of the same agent (Hand records to), which receives them with the Another play sends records trigger. New play creates the receiving play. Free.

Reads from or writes to Salesforce or HubSpot. Free (it uses your CRM's API calls, not credits).

Owner assignment options: Keep current owner (your CRM defaults), Assign one specific owner, Round-robin across all owners, Round-robin across chosen owners, Account owner, Owner from a field, or Rules, each with an Otherwise fallback.

Write safety: Inherit CRM protections (the default, follows your CRM settings, for example leaving records a rep owns alone) or Allow updates to owned records.

Used only by CRM cleanup plays with the CRM duplicates trigger. See CRM duplicate cleanup.

Send to: a Cleanlist sequence, or (on an agent's play) lemlist, Outreach or Salesloft. Free: sending costs no credits.

Cleanlist sequence

lemlist, Outreach or Salesloft

Slack channels must be internal to your Slack workspace. Free.

Sends records to your own https endpoint. Free.

Use Send test to check the endpoint once the play is saved. Secrets come from Settings → Connections → Secrets; see [Secrets](#secrets).

Adds a row per record, or updates the matching row, in the Google Sheet and Tab you pick, with the columns you choose. Free.

Create a Google Doc creates one doc per record. Add a page to a Notion database adds one page per record, and Update a Notion page updates the matching page. Free; the apps must be connected.

Scheduled briefs (an agent with a Schedule trigger and no record play) have a Brief step: one unattended Clu turn that writes the brief, then a Notify step that sends it. It is charged like a Clu message, up to the agent's Brief credits per run (default 100, at most 1,000). See Agents: Scheduled briefs.

On an agent's play, open a step's On failure settings:

New Enrich and CRM Action steps on an agent's play retry 3 times by default. A retry restarts at the step that failed and never charges earlier steps again. Records waiting for a retry show under Waiting records on the Runs tab.

A play can have up to 50 steps, branches nested up to 10 deep, and is limited to 200 KB in size. Records parked by Wait, Approve, retries and Hand off are capped at 50,000 per play.

The Approve step pauses records until a person decides. Approvals appear on the agent's Approvals tab, in the Approvals inbox and, if you choose, in Slack.

Approvers get one reminder after 24 hours. Approved records continue on the Approved path. Rejected records take the Rejected path, or leave the play if it has none.

When you confirm, Cleanlist explains what happens next ("Records continue on the saved Approved path." or "Records take the Rejected path. With no Rejected path, they leave the play.") and lets you add a Reason, optional. When you approve a single record, you can edit the fields shown before it continues, except emails, phones, LinkedIn URLs and IDs.

An approver listed on the step, or an organization admin. In Slack, only the linked approver can use the buttons. The agent must be on: inside a paused agent the Approvals tab shows "Turn the agent on to decide." With nothing pending, the inbox shows "No approvals waiting".

Secrets hold tokens and keys for Webhook step authentication, so they never appear in a play or in chat.

Full documentation: docs.cleanlist.ai/features/play-steps