quickstart.mdx

---
title: Quickstart
---

Credal's AI agents empower you to build **dedicated assistants** for a wide range of enterprise use cases, from customer support to contract review.

Agents are purpose-built AIs you create by selecting a model, attaching data sources, and writing a custom prompt. You can interact with them through a chat UI or publish them to Slack and other applications to perform workflows or answer questions.

For example, a Slack agent can listen for benefit-related queries in a channel and respond with accurate, source-cited answers using your data.

<Steps>

### Create Your Agent

From the main screen, click **“Agents”** in the navigation menu:

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-left-nav.png" alt="The Agents option in the left navigation menu" />
</Frame>

Then click **“Create New Agent”**:

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/after-clicking-agent.png" alt="The Agents page with the Create New Agent button" />
</Frame>

Give your agent a **Name** and add a **Description** of its function in the pop-out form. You can always edit these later. Descriptions should be detailed enough to explain what types of queries the agent handles.

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-creation-popup.png" alt="The agent creation form with Name and Description fields" />
</Frame>

You can access all created and shared agents by clicking **“Published”** in the Agents tab.

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-published.png" alt="The Published section of the Agents tab listing created and shared agents" />
</Frame>

---

### Configure Your Agent

Now that your agent is set up, Credal automatically directs you to the configuration page, where you can tune your agent for your use case. You can return to this page to edit your settings at any time.

For a deeper walkthrough, see our [Detailed Agents User Guide](/user-guide/platform/agent-builder/configuration/setting-up-an-agent).

1. **Metadata** – Name and Description are already set.
2. **Model** – [Choose from the latest models](/user-guide/platform/agent-builder/configuration/choosing-a-model) across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Cerebras. Cerebras is worth trying if speed is a priority — it runs open-source models on specialized hardware for significantly faster responses. If you're unsure, the default is a solid starting point.
3. **Creativity** – We recommend starting with “Balanced” or “Precise.” Choose “Creative” for open-ended tasks like brainstorming or marketing.

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-different-models-dropdown.png" alt="The model selection dropdown showing available AI models" />
</Frame>

4. **[Prompt](/user-guide/platform/agent-builder/configuration/writing-instructions)** – Here you can provide a custom prompt that gives the agent context and instructions on how to handle user queries. By default, Credal instructs agents to be helpful, honest, and direct, and to let users know when they're unsure of the answer.

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-prompt.png" alt="The custom prompt editor in the agent configuration page" />
</Frame>

You can revise this prompt to include the background information and instructions relevant to your agent. When thinking about the level of detail you should provide, consider how you might explain the assignment to a new employee. Your explanation might include:

- Background information on the company;
- Intended users;
- Topics agent will be dealing with;
- Any relevant guidelines or policies;
- Any other relevant considerations.

The content and depth of prompts will vary by use case.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Example Prompt: Federal Rules of Court Agent">
*You are a diligent, objective, detail-oriented, assistant. Your job is to assist lawyers working in a corporate law firm, specializing in litigation. You will answer questions related to the application of rules of civil procedure, including the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the local rules applicable to various district courts. You will respond to questions and prompts truthfully.*

_Instructions:_

- _Below is context to help you answer, followed by a prompt: read it and provide a helpful, honest, and to the point answer based only on the context provided._
- _If you're unsure of an answer, you can say "I don't know" or "I'm not sure"._
- _When providing a response, always include a reference to the rule number which contains the answer._

_The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are procedural rules that apply to civil court cases in United States federal district courts. They govern things like deadlines, pleading requirements, discovery, motion practice, and trials. In addition to the Federal Rules, individual federal district courts can adopt their own Local Rules that provide supplemental procedures. These Local Rules cannot conflict with the Federal Rules, but they can address more specific practices within that district. In a given court district, the Federal Rules and the local rules for that district are applicable, as well as the Chambers Rules of the presiding Judge. Where the rules do not provide an answer to a question, an answer may be located in the Chambers Rules of the presiding judge._

_--- Start Context ---_
_{{data}}_
_--- End Context ---_

  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Example Prompt: Credal's Information Security Agent">
*You are a friendly helpful, honest assistant, who helps Credal company employees answer questions and prompts truthfully about information security questionnaires. Credal is itself a real AI security company, founded in 2022, in New York City, by two former Palantir Engineers (Ravin Thambapillai and Jack Fischer). Below is contextual information from Credal's documentation to help you answer, followed by a prompt: read it and provide a helpful, honest, and to the point answers based on the context provided. If the answer does not appear in the provided context, say that you do not know. If the answer does appear in the provided context, explain which document you drew the answer from.*

_--------- Context: ---------_
_{{data}}_
_--------- End Context ---------_

  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

5. **Data**
   The data you provide will be the source of truth for your agent. Your agent will rely on this data (along with the prompt and Q&A pairs) to answer user queries. You should provide your agent with sufficient data relevant to its area of expertise. The data you attach is the most important source of knowledge for the agent.

   There are two ways you can provide data to the agent:

   - **Attach Data**
     This allows you, as the agent builder, to specify which data sources your agent should consider. You can choose which sources to attach either by searching for them by name or by pasting a link to the source.

     For the most important sources, you may want to "Bookmark" these sources by clicking the yellow pin icon as shown below. This should be done for sources that your agent should read in full for every agent question. Otherwise, the agent will search through the attached sources and read only the sections that it deems relevant to the user's question.

     <Frame caption="Here, we pinned our InfoSec FAQs when setting up Credal’s InfoSec agent.">
       <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-datasource-configure.png" alt="Attached data sources with a bookmarked source pinned via the yellow pin icon" />
     </Frame>

   - **User Inputs / Attachments**
     Alternatively, you may want to allow the user to attach one or more source documents at the time of their question. For example, you may create an agent for generating meeting notes based on a transcript, and you want to allow your user to provide a different transcript each time they use the agent. This can be accomplished by creating a user input.

   **Advanced Settings**
   There are some advanced settings you can use to control how your agent searches through the attached data. For most use cases, you should leave the default settings.

   For advanced use cases, you can specify how many of the most relevant chunks (a chunk is roughly 2-3 sentences) the agent should read. You can also set a relevancy score cutoff.

---

### Publish Your Agent to Slack

After setup, you can use your agent directly in Credal or publish it to Slack (or other tools via API).
This guide covers Slack. For other integrations, see the [full documentation](/user-guide/platform/agent-builder/publishing-agents/overview).

Go to "Slack Channels" in your agents "Publish" settings and enable the ability to talk to your agent in Slack. Then you can select target channels:

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-slack-channel-deploy.png" alt="The Slack Channels publish settings for selecting target channels" />
</Frame>

If multiple agents are published to a single channel, Credal uses their descriptions to decide which one should respond.
You can choose to have your agent answer all messages in a given channel or only those that meet certain criteria:

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-slack-configure.png" alt="Slack configuration options for choosing which messages the agent answers" />
</Frame>

- **All messages**: will answer all queries in the connected Slack channel.
- **All relevant messages**: will respond to all queries matching the [Description](/user-guide/platform/agent-builder/configuration/setting-up-an-agent) of the agent.
- **All messages matching filter**: will respond to messages that match the filter criteria. In the example in the screenshot, the agent will only respond to prompts containing “?”.

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/agent-slack-trigger-dropdown.png" alt="The Slack trigger dropdown with a filter matching messages containing a question mark" />
</Frame>

If more than one agent is published to a given Slack channel, Credal will triage user requests based on the Description of each agent to determine which, if any, should answer the question.

<Frame>
  <img src="/docs/assets/agents/create-steps/relevant-slack-filter.png" alt="Multiple agents published to one Slack channel, triaged by their descriptions" />
</Frame>

</Steps>

---

📘 Looking for a more in-depth guide? Refer to the [Agents Platform section](/user-guide/platform/agent-builder/configuration/setting-up-an-agent)

## Support

For questions or support? Reach out to our team at **[support@credal.ai](mailto:support@credal.ai)**.