Agent Types
| Type | Faces | Typical trigger | Credit usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| External agent | Contacts and customers | An inbox trigger | Does not consume credits |
| Internal agent | Your team and internal systems | Manual action, Operator, or an internal channel | Consumes credits |
| Voice agent | Phone callers | A configured phone number | Depends on voice usage |
External Agents
External agents are customer-facing chat agents. Creating one also creates an inbox, so inbound conversations for that contact type can be routed to the agent. Use external agents for support, sales, guest messaging, lead intake, vendor communication, and any other workflow where the AI responds to a contact.Internal Agents
Internal agents run behind the scenes. They do not own an inbox and they do not respond directly to customers unless you connect them to another workflow. Use internal agents for operations work, data lookup, team-facing Slack workflows, enrichment, triage, and other tasks your team wants to automate out of the customer’s view.Voice Agents
Voice agents are configured separately because they need phone-number routing, voice behavior, transfer rules, and call-specific guardrails.Create An Agent
Choose an agent type
Click Add agent and choose Create external agent, Create internal agent, or Build with Operator.
Name the agent
Use a short, unique name. Agent and inbox names must be unique in the workspace, and names are limited to 20 characters.
Chat Agent Tabs
V2 chat agents use these tabs:| Tab | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Activity | Review recent runs, behavior, and outcomes after the agent is published. |
| Persona | Set the agent’s instructions and guardrails. |
| Tools | Decide which connection tools, custom tools, MCP tools, and built-in tools this agent can use. |
| Skills | Assign reusable instructions and tool-aware process guidance to the agent. |
| Behavior | Configure escalation rules, working hours, language, response delay, auto mark-as-done, structured output, and advanced hooks. |
| Settings | Configure agent identity and personalization settings. |
Publish And History
Agent edits are staged before they affect production behavior. When the save bar appears, review the changes and publish them intentionally. V2 agents also keep version history so you can inspect previous published configurations. Use Activity after publishing to confirm that the agent is using the expected instructions, tools, skills, and sources.Triggers
External agents can be attached to an inbox trigger. The agent sidebar shows the current inbox trigger and warns if another agent is already listening to that inbox. Internal agents can be connected to team channels. Slack is available in the internal-agent channel area. Other channel trigger rows may appear disabled until they are enabled for your workspace. Webhook, schedule, and workflow trigger sections may also appear in the trigger list. Treat disabled trigger controls as unavailable until the product surface enables them in your workspace.Behavior Settings
The Behavior tab controls how a customer-facing chat agent operates after it knows what to say.| Section | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Escalation rules | Which messages should be handed to a human instead of answered automatically. |
| Behavior | Language and other response behavior settings. |
| Hours | The agent’s working hours. |
| Reply preferences | Response delay and automatic mark-as-done behavior. |
| Output | Structured output schema for advanced workflows. |
| Hooks | Advanced pre-run, post-run, error, and tool lifecycle handlers. |