Send a coding screen or book a live coding interview from an Ashby stage

A stage rule tells Kendor what to do when an application enters an Ashby stage: send a screen, or book a live coding interview. Recruiters keep moving candidates in Ashby as usual; when an application lands in a stage with a rule, Kendor emails the candidate their screen or a link to book a time, and starts writing its status back to the application.

Add a stage rule

Open Integrations, choose Manage on the Ashby card, and go to Stages that send a screen or a live coding interview.

1. In Job, pick an open Ashby job, or leave it on any job.
2. In Stage, choose a stage. For one job, the list shows that job's interview plan stages in order. For any job, it shows every stage name used across your open jobs.
3. In Kendor screen or interview, choose one of your live screens, or a live coding interview, listed as Live coding · …. For a live coding interview, set the hours the candidate can book; see Book a live coding interview.
4. Choose Add rule.

The rule appears as the stage, the job (or any job) and the screen it sends or the live coding interview it books, with the hours under it. Use Remove to delete a rule.

One job or any job

• One job matches that job's exact stage.
• Any job matches a stage by name on every job, ignoring case. A rule for Technical screen fires on every job that has a stage called Technical screen.

When both could apply, the rule for the one job wins over the any-job rule.

What happens when a candidate enters a screen's stage

1. Ashby sends Kendor a signed stage-change webhook. Kendor checks the signature and answers straight away.
2. Kendor looks for a rule matching the application's job and new stage. No match, nothing happens.
3. Kendor reads the candidate's primary email address from Ashby and invites them to the screen, exactly as if you had invited them from Kendor.
4. The candidate gets Kendor's usual invitation email for that screen, from your organization, with the time limit and the date the invite expires.
5. Kendor writes Kendor status = Invited to the application in Ashby.

The candidate shows up in the screen's candidate list in Kendor with an Ashby mark (Sent from Ashby). From there it's an ordinary invite: reviewers work on it in Kendor, and Kendor keeps the Ashby fields up to date. See What Kendor writes back to Ashby.

The screen's own settings still apply. If the screen has an Email domain allowlist and the candidate's email is outside it, or the candidate already completed the screen and Allow re-invite after completion is off, Kendor sends no invite and leaves a note on the candidate in Ashby that starts Kendor: no invite sent. and gives the reason.

Book a live coding interview

A rule that points at a live coding interview books the candidate in instead of sending a screen. Under Hours the candidate can book, set:

• Days: the weekdays to offer. At least one.
• From and To: the hours on each of those days.
• Time zone: the zone those hours are in. It starts as your browser's.
• Days ahead: how far ahead to offer times, from 1 to 30 days.

The rule starts as weekdays, 09:00 to 17:00, 14 days ahead. Its line reads, for example, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri · 09:00–17:00 Europe/Berlin · next 14 days.

When an application enters the stage:

1. Kendor reads the candidate's email from Ashby, as for a screen, and turns the hours into times from today for the days ahead you set.
2. It creates a session of the live coding interview that the candidate books themselves. The interview's panel runs it, or whoever created the interview if it has no panel. The session lasts the interview's Default session length, or 60 minutes when that's empty.
3. The candidate gets an email to pick a time, signed as your organization. The booking page only offers times that don't clash with the panel's other Kendor sessions; Kendor doesn't read anyone's calendar.
4. Kendor writes Kendor status = Invited to the application and leaves a note. When the candidate books, the status becomes Scheduled and another note gives the time in UTC.

The session then appears under Calendar like any other. Its page shows From Ashby with the job and stage, and what Ashby last heard. If the candidate books nothing before the last offered time has passed, Ashby hears Expired. See What Kendor writes back to Ashby.

If Kendor can't make the session, it leaves a note on the candidate instead and nothing is recorded for the stage, so moving the application into it again tries again:

Note	Fix
Kendor: no live coding session made, because the stage rule's hours offer no time in the next … days.	Widen the rule's days or hours, or offer more days ahead.
Kendor: no live coding session made. …	The reason follows, for example the live coding interview was archived or has no code. Fix it in Kendor.

A candidate screened from Ashby earlier

A candidate can also reach a live coding session without a rule, for example when you invite them from their profile. If Ashby sent that candidate to a screen before, matched by email, the session's notes go onto that same application: one when the session is held, with its length and the review link, and one when the panel decides. The application's fields keep showing the screen.

Duplicates

An application gets one invite, or one live coding session, per stage. If Ashby delivers the same stage change twice, even at the same moment, only the first one sends an email; the repeat is ignored.

This also means moving an application out of a stage and back into it doesn't send the screen again. To send the email again, open the candidate in Kendor and choose Send reminder.

If the same candidate is invited to the same screen again from a different stage, Kendor refreshes their existing invite with a new expiry date and sends the email again, rather than creating a second invite.

Cancelling an invite

Moving the candidate out of the stage in Ashby doesn't withdraw the invite. To stop it, open the candidate in Kendor and choose Cancel invite. The link stops working at once, and Kendor writes Kendor status = Cancelled to the application.

• You can only cancel an invite the candidate hasn't started.
• Send reminder revives a cancelled invite with a fresh expiry date, and the status goes back to Invited.
• Deleting the screen in Kendor marks its unstarted Ashby invites Cancelled too.