Tribology plays a crucial role in progress of industry and engineering. The dependence of interfaceconditions and interfacial reactions provides the strategies for friction reduction as well as anti-wear inindustrial processes. That is to modify the surface structure of materials or tune the properties oflubricants. This review provides an overview on the important interface conditions and surface-inducedtribological reactions with emphasis on the underlying of their formation and action mechanism. Thetribological features of asperity, debris and surface texture arefirstly dictated. Then the main surfaceinducedphysicochemical reactions including wetting/dewetting, deposition/adsorption are discussed. Inparticular, the thermal, mechanical and electrical effects that trigger tribochemical reactions are alsoaddressed. Finally, some deficiencies in related investigations are summarized, with perspectives for thedevelopment of tribology in both science research and industrial application.