Apoptosis

These are mutually exclusive with different mechanisms, they aren't a series of events.

Also, autophagy is not normally a cell death mechanism. It is a cell preservation mechanism under specific stress conditions.

I am not sure how to answer this question, but what I know is that these events happen separately or at the same time depending on the environment and the different variations used like for example including a treatment. These events too have different pathways that may interact rarely or frequently depending on the settings. So all in all, saying which one theses events happens first is really hard because if we assume that one of them happens first we may assume also that the other events are originated from that first event which is kind of revolutionary finding especially considering the impact of each of those events on human health and the many functions they can assure individually.

I would assume, that autophagy is detectable first. No matter the environmental conditions, autophagy is usually running in the cell as the main homeostasis-maintaining mechanism even in physiological conditions. During the beginning of cell/environmental stress, autophagy will be the first mechanism used to restore homeostasis. If the stress levels are too high, necrosis will be likely the detected cell death modality. Apoptosis needs time and energy, in my experiments, apoptosis usually occurs after a long time, compared with necrotic cell death types or autophagy.

it will depend on the cause of death if the cell has a time it will suicide by apoptosis

In any multicellular organism three different types of programmed cell death occurred like apoptosis, autophagy and necrosis. The number of cells in any organism is highly regulated-not simply by controlling the rate of cell division, but also by controlling the rate of cell death. If cells are no longer needed, they commit suicide by activating an intracellular death program commonly called apoptosis. Autophagic cell death is induced by several factors like nutrient starvation, amino acid deprivation, hypoxia, oxidative stress, pathogen infection. Necrotic cell death is a type of accidental cell death that is mainly caused by physiological, mechanical or thermal stress.

You should read the attached article in detail for further information.

Best regards

Pramod