Agents

Starting a new agent

Describing the agent you need, changing its draft by replying, and Create or Discard.

You make a new agent by describing it in a conversation. It drafts itself from what you write, and you change the draft by replying until it is what you want.

Describing it

Choose New agent from the menu (the three dots at the top of the left pane), at the end of the row of agents under “Start a new conversation with”, or at the top of the Agents tab. The new agent screen asks you to “Describe what you need”, and offers a few examples to start from, such as “Keep track of my invoices”. Click one, or write your own in the message box and send it.

The app opens a conversation titled “New agent” for the draft. The agent drafts itself, which takes a moment, and posts a draft card:

A new agent’s conversation: the request “Keep track of my invoices”, a draft card for Invoice Payer, the reply “Call it Invoice Chaser”, and a second draft card for Invoice Chaser with Create Invoice Chaser, Change something and Discard.

The card shows:

the agent’s name, which is its job title, and “Top-level agent · reports to you”;
what it is for;
Wakes up when: when it starts work. A new agent works when you message it;
Can: the skills it starts with, if any;
Workspace starts with: the files it starts with, such as its knowledge files.

Changing it

To change the draft, say what to change in the message box, such as “call it Meal Planner” or “it should also track due dates”. Each reply revises the draft and posts a new card under it; the earlier cards stay, faded, so you can see how it changed. Change something on the card puts the cursor in the message box.

A draft agent does no work, cannot be tagged and does not appear in the Agents tab until you create it. Its conversation shows “Draft” in the conversation list.

Create or Discard

The buttons on the newest card decide what happens:

Create, named for the agent (such as Create Invoice Chaser), makes it an agent. The conversation becomes its first, titled “Getting started”, a line says “You created Invoice Chaser. This is its first conversation.”, and the agent greets you. It appears in the Agents tab, and you can start conversations with it.
Discard deletes the draft and its conversation, and returns you to the conversation list.

Agents your agents create

You can also ask one of the agents you created to set up an agent for a project. It creates a delegate straight away, with no draft: an agent of its own that works on the project and reports back to the conversation you asked in. A line in that conversation says so, such as “Bill Payer created Receipt Sorter, its delegate. Its reports come back to this conversation.” Delegates are listed under the agent that created them in the Agents tab.