Stop Crafting Test Events by Hand — Let the Journey Simulation Agent Do It

Introduction

In our previous post, Journey Simulation Agent — Cover Your Whole Journey in a Few Clicks with AI-Built Test Users, No Hand-Crafted Data, we showed how the Journey Simulation Agent generates a minimal, AI-built set of test users to exercise every branch of your journey — no manual profile construction needed. That post kept things simple: a journey with no event nodes.

But most real journeys don't stay simple. They wait on events — a cart addition, a purchase, an app open, a custom behavioral signal. And those event-driven journeys have a few extra moving parts.

This post covers those extra moving parts: how the Journey Simulation Agent automatically generates the test events your journey needs, matches them to the right test users, and triggers them in the right order — so you can go from draft to publish-ready without touching a single event payload by hand.

We'll use a loyalty-tiered cart-abandonment journey as our example — one that has an event-triggered entry, a condition split, and a mid-journey behavioral event.

The Problem: You've Got Test Users. Now You Need Test Events.

Here's where most practitioners hit a wall.

The Journey Simulation Agent already handles test user creation. But the moment your journey has event nodes, you need test events too — and building those is its own job.

The journey we'll be testing

The journey works as follows:

• An addToCart unitary event triggers journey entry.
• A "Loyalty Tier Check" data-source condition splits into two paths:
  • Gold Customer path: Receives a Gold Member Cart Email → waits for a PurchaseCompleted unitary event → receives a Gold Purchase Thank You email.
  • Standard Customer path: Receives a Standard Cart Reminder Email and exits.

Even after the test users are generated, you still have to:

1. Figure out which events each path needs. Both users need addToCart to enter — this is a event triggered unitary journey, so the entry event fires before anyone gets in. The Gold Customer also needs PurchaseCompleted mid-journey. The Standard Customer doesn't.
2. Know what goes inside each event payload. What fields does PurchaseCompleted require? What's a realistic product name or order ID? What values make sense for the Gold Customer's specific profile? You have to consult the event schema yourself.
3. Build each payload by hand. Open the event creation form. Fill in every field. For every event. For every user.
4. Map events to the right users. PurchaseCompleted belongs to the Gold Customer — not the Standard Customer. One wrong mapping and your simulation proves nothing.
5. Trigger everything in the right order. addToCart fires first for all users. PurchaseCompleted can only be sent after the Gold Customer has entered the journey and reached that event node. One wrong step and the simulation is invalid.

Two paths, two event types — already a lot to track. Add more branches, more event nodes, a deeper schema, and this quickly becomes the bottleneck between you and publication.

The Solution: The Agent Handles Your Test Events Too

The Journey Simulation Agent closes this gap completely. Here's what it takes off your plate:

1. AI-generated test users, one per path. The Agent maps your journey graph, finds all valid paths, and builds a realistic, condition-satisfying test user for each one.
2. AI-generated event payloads, per user per event node. For every event node on a test user's path, the Agent fetches that user's profile, inspects the event schema, and uses AI to produce a complete, realistic event payload — with values that fit the schema and make sense for that specific user. For event-triggered unitary journeys, this includes the entry event itself.
3. Correct sequencing, handled automatically. Entry events fire first. Users enter. Mid-journey events fire only when users have reached the specific event node. The Agent manages the order — you don't.
4. A clear publish verdict. The Agent checks each user's traversal log against their intended path and gives you a Simulation Analysis: paths covered, paths missed, and whether the journey is ready to publish.

Net effect: schema lookups, payload construction, user-to-event mapping, trigger sequencing — all gone. What's left is reviewing the results.

How to Use Journey Simulation Agent: A Step-by-Step Guide

Here's the whole flow at a glance:

• Step 1 — Start Simulation mode on your draft journey.
• Step 2 — Generate test users with AI.
• Step 3 — Generate test events with AI.
• Step 4 — Trigger entry events → user entrance → mid-journey events.
• Step 5 — Read the Simulation Analysis and get your publish verdict.

The Agent offers two modes:

• Quick Simulation — Steps 2–5 in a single click. Fastest path to a publish verdict.
• Manual Simulation — Separate controls for each step. Review generated users and events, choose what to trigger and when.

Step 1: Start Simulation Mode

Open the Journey Authoring canvas for a Draft journey. Click Simulate in the top-right menu — active only when the journey has no validation errors.

[UI snapshot: Journey canvas top-right menu showing the Simulate button]

In the dialog, select Simulation and click Confirm. The journey enters Simulation state and you'll see both mode options.

[UI snapshot: Simulation confirmation dialog and panel showing Quick Simulation and Manual Simulation]

The Fast Path: Quick Simulation

Click Quick Simulation. The Agent asks for your execution fields — email and/or phone for content proofs, pre-filled from your profile. Edit if needed, then confirm.

[UI snapshot: Execution Fields dialog with pre-filled email/phone and edit option]

From here, sit back. The Agent runs the full sequence automatically:

1. Generates test users — one per valid path, with AI-chosen profile attributes. In our example: a Gold-tier user and a standard-tier user.
2. Generates and sends entry events — produces an addToCart payload for each user and fires it. Since this is an event-triggered unitary journey, the entry event must go out before users can enter.
3. Triggers user entrance — with entry events sent, both users enter the journey automatically.
4. Orchestrates mid-journey events — as users advance and hit event nodes, the Agent generates the right payload and sends it. For the Gold Customer, that's PurchaseCompleted — sent at exactly the right moment. This continues until every user has reached their path's end.

[UI snapshot: Quick Simulation progress: Generating Users → Triggering Entry → Orchestrating Events → Completed]

Click View Results. The Journey Simulation Summary shows:

• Both paths covered.
• Gold Customer: addToCart → Gold Member Cart Email → PurchaseCompleted → Gold Purchase Thank You
• Standard Customer: addToCart → Standard Cart Reminder Email → End
• Journey is ready for publication.

[UI snapshot: Journey Simulation Summary showing full path coverage and Ready for Publication verdict]

The Controlled Path: Manual Simulation

Step 2: Generate Test Users

Click Manual Simulation, then Generate with AI. Fill in your execution fields and click Generate.

[UI snapshot: Generate with AI button and the Execution Fields dialog]

The Agent analyses the journey, finds all valid paths, and builds a test user for each one. A table appears with profile names and AI-generated attribute values for review.

[UI snapshot: Test users table with profile names and generated attribute values per path]

For a deep dive into how profile generation works, see our previous post (linked in the Reference Links section below).

Since this is an event-triggered unitary journey, the test events panel appears immediately after user generation — the Agent already knows every user needs the entry event.

Step 3: Generate Test Events

The events panel has a dropdown to pick an event type and a table of test users with their status. The panel doesn't decide which events each user needs — you determine that from the journey canvas. The Agent builds the payload once you've made that call.

[UI snapshot: Test events panel with addToCart selected and users in Needs setup status]

For each user, click the pencil icon. The Agent generates event field values — product names, order IDs, timestamps — tailored to that user's profile and the schema. Review, tweak if needed, confirm. Status flips to Ready.

For this journey, work through two event types:

addToCart — entry event, required for all users Select addToCart. Click the pencil icon for each user, review the AI-generated payloads, and confirm. Both show Ready.

PurchaseCompleted — mid-journey event, Gold Customer only Select PurchaseCompleted. Both users appear — but the journey canvas tells you only the Gold Customer needs this event. Generate and confirm for the Gold Customer; skip the Standard Customer.

[UI snapshot: Test events panel with PurchaseCompleted selected and Gold Customer showing Ready status]

Step 4: Trigger Entry Events → User Entrance → Mid-Journey Events

All payloads are Ready. Trigger them in order:

1. Send entry events — Click Send for addToCart for all users. Both users enter the journey automatically.
2. Send mid-journey events — Once inside, the Gold Customer reaches the PurchaseCompleted node and waits. Click Send for that event. The Gold Customer advances, receives the thank-you email, and completes their path.

[UI snapshot: Simulation controls showing Send for addToCart and PurchaseCompleted]

Step 5: View Results

Switch to the Results tab for the Journey Simulation Summary — path coverage, per-user status, and the publish verdict. Same view as Quick Simulation.

[UI snapshot: Journey Simulation Summary showing all paths covered and publication-readiness verdict]

Summary

Event-driven journeys used to mean one extra job after user generation: look up schemas, build payloads by hand, map events to the right users, get the trigger order right. The Agent removes all of it:

• No schema hunting — the Agent reads the XDM event schema for you.
• No hand-built payloads — AI generates realistic, schema-valid field values tailored to each test user's profile.
• No sequencing headaches — entry events fire first, users enter, mid-journey events follow at exactly the right moment.
• A clear verdict — the Simulation Analysis tells you which paths passed, which didn't, and whether you're ready to publish.

Use Quick Simulation when you want results fast. Use Manual Simulation when you want to inspect and control each step. Either way, a careful, error-prone pre-publication ritual becomes a handful of clicks.

Reference Links

• Journey Simulation Agent — Experience League docs (link to be added)
• AJO: Journeys New Simulation Mode — From Zero to Your First Quick Run in Under 5 Minutes
• Journey Simulation Agent — Cover Your Whole Journey in a Few Clicks with AI-Built Test Users, No Hand-Crafted Data