An in-line trigger is a modular, compiled, template trigger, which defines a series of actions to be performed when an operation is applied to a body of data. The series of actions to be performed when an in-line trigger fires are compiled into machine language instructions that receive three kinds of parameters: trigger-type specific parameters, operational metadata, and operational data. Trigger-type specific parameters are loaded into a section of run-time memory once for multiple firings of the same trigger. Operational metadata and operational data are loaded each time the trigger fires.