Building a custom agent

The catalog covers a lot, but sometimes you need a colleague it doesn't have: different knowledge, a particular tone, or a way of working that's yours. Building one takes a few minutes, and nothing beyond a name or a line of instructions is required to start.

Start a new agent

Open Agents in the sidebar and choose New agent at the top of the agent list. A blank agent opens in a panel beside the conversation.

Nothing is created until you write something. As soon as you type a name or a line of instructions, the agent is saved, and every change after that saves as you go. There's no Save button to remember. If you change your mind before writing anything, close the panel, or choose Discard from the More actions menu.

Until the agent has both a name of its own and some instructions, it's a draft, and its chat says "This agent is in draft mode" with a Finish setup button that opens this panel. Add the missing one and the banner goes.

Name, Job Title and description

At the top of the panel:

• Avatar and colour. Click the avatar to pick an icon and a colour. If you've collected Dinodex characters, you can pick one of those too.
• Name. Click Add a name. Up to 100 characters.
• Job Title. Click Add a job title. It shows under the name wherever the agent appears.
• Description. Click Add a description. A line or two on what the agent is for.

Instructions

The Instructions tab is the agent's standing brief, up to 10,000 characters.

Not sure where to start? Before adding a description, write a sentence or two about the agent you want in the Instructions tab, then press Generate. Claos writes the whole agent from it: name, Job Title, description and instructions.

Once the agent has a description, the button works from that instead: Generate writes instructions when there are none, and Rewrite reworks the ones you have.

What tends to help:

• Open with the job in one sentence.
• Say how it should write: tone, length, format.
• List what it should never do. Clear limits work better than careful wording elsewhere.
• Say where results go, for example "save drafts to the Marketing folder".

Expect to revise a few times in the first week. When answers feel generic, the instructions are usually the thing to change.

Plugins

The Plugins tab lists the connected apps this agent may use, such as Gmail, Slack or Google Drive, and lets you add others. It also holds Auto-approve sensitive actions. With it off, actions like sending an email wait for your approval first; turn it on only for agents you trust. See Giving an agent access to an integration.

Every agent can already work inside Claos (search, pages, tasks, comments) without any plugins.

Skills

The Skills tab shows the skills this agent uses, up to 12. Below them you can add more: skills suggested for this kind of agent come first, then the ones already in your workspace, then the rest by category. You can also write your own with Create skill, or import one. See Skills.

Skills are shared across the workspace, so several agents can use the same one. Editing a shared skill changes it for every agent that uses it.

Memory

The Memory tab shows what the agent knows about you and your work, in its own list and in the list every agent shares. Add, correct or delete entries there, or tell the agent in chat to remember something.

On paid plans, an owner or admin can switch on Let Alex manage this memory (with your agent's name) at the top of the tab, and the agent then also learns from your conversations by itself. It's off for every new agent.

Each agent holds up to 50 memories of its own, and the shared list holds 50. When one is full you get a notification; delete what's out of date to make room. See Agent memory.

Other actions

The More actions menu at the top of the panel offers Duplicate, Save as Template, Share agent and Delete. Deleting moves the agent to Trash, where you can restore it. Only the person who created an agent, or an admin, can delete it.

Tips

• It's Job Title, not "role". Roles belong to the people in your workspace.
• Plugins, Skills and Memory become available once the agent has been saved, which happens as soon as you write something.
• An agent can suggest changes to its own instructions or skills as it learns. An owner or admin sees them at the top of the Instructions or Skills tab, with Approve and Reject.

Related

• The agent catalog
• Chatting with an agent
• Putting an agent on a task
• Giving an agent access to an integration