EventTrigger is the most useful trigger because it allows user to directly interact with a state machine by sending events to it. These events are also called signals. Trigger is added to a transition simply by associating a state to it during a configuration.

@Autowired
StateMachine<States, Events> stateMachine;

void signalMachine() {
    stateMachine.sendEvent(Events.E1);

    Message<Events> message = MessageBuilder
            .withPayload(Events.E2)
            .setHeader("foo", "bar")
            .build();
    stateMachine.sendEvent(message);
}

In above example we send an event using two different ways. Firstly we simply sent a type safe event using state machine api method sendEvent(E event). Secondly we send event wrapped in a Spring messaging Message using api method sendEvent(Message<E> message) with a custom event headers. This allows user to add arbitrary extra information with an event which is then visible to StateContext when for example user is implementing actions.

TimerTrigger is useful when something needs to be triggered automatically without any user interaction. Trigger is added to a transition by associating a timer with it during a configuration.

@Configuration
@EnableStateMachine
static class Config2 extends StateMachineConfigurerAdapter<String, String> {

    @Override
    public void configure(StateMachineStateConfigurer<String, String> states)
            throws Exception {
        states
            .withStates()
                .initial("S1")
                .state("S2");
    }

    @Override
    public void configure(StateMachineTransitionConfigurer<String, String> transitions)
            throws Exception {
        transitions
            .withExternal()
                .source("S1")
                .target("S2")
                .event("E1")
                .and()
            .withInternal()
                .source("S2")
                .action(timerAction())
                .timer(1000);
    }

    @Bean
    public TimerAction timerAction() {
        return new TimerAction();
    }
}

static class TimerAction implements Action<String, String> {

    @Override
    public void execute(StateContext<String, String> context) {
        // do something in every 1 sec
    }
}

In above we have two states, S1 and S2. We have a normal external transition from S1 to S2 with event E1 but interesting part is when we define internal transition with source state S2 and associate it with Action bean timerAction and timer value of 1000ms. Once a state machine receive event E1 it does a transition from S1 to S2 and timer kicks in. As long as state is kept in S2 TimerTrigger executes and causes a transition associated with that state which in this case is the internal transition which has the timerAction defined.