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Quickstart: your first agent

Create an agent, give it a persona, talk to it in the playground and connect one channel, in six steps that each link the page with the detail.

An agent answers people on your behalf, and you can have one talking to you within half an hour of signing up. This page is the shortest route: create it, write its persona, hear it in the playground, and put it on one channel where a colleague can message it. Each step is one sentence and a link to the page that carries the detail, so read the linked page when a step raises a question.

What you need

  • An account and its workspace; see Sign up and create your workspace.
  • Credits on the workspace balance. Every test and every channel conversation is charged by the turn; see What a turn costs.
  • A voice you like from the library, or a minute to pick one in the create step; see Choosing a voice.
  • For Step 6, a Slack workspace you can add apps to, or another channel you can message from your own account.

Steps

Step 1: Open the agents list

Choose Agents under Build in the sidebar, then press Build New Agent; see Create an agent.

Step 2: Create it

Choose Start from scratch, type an Agent Name, pick a voice under Choose a voice, and press Create; the agent opens on its Overview tab; see Create an agent.

Step 3: Write the persona

Open the Persona tab, write Personality as a brief for a new teammate that names the agent and says what it does, and give it a Greeting message; both save as you type; see Write the persona.

Step 4: Talk to it

Press Test in the agent header, choose Chat, ask it three questions a customer would ask, then press End Test and try Call to hear the voice; see Test your agent.

Step 5: Connect one channel

Open the Channels tab, press Add Channel, choose Slack, type a Name, press Connect, approve on Slack, and press Confirm Connect with Direct Messages on; see Slack.

Step 6: Send the first message

In Slack, send the EchoNova app a direct message, read the reply there, then open the agent's Conversations tab and read the same exchange with what it cost; see Find and read a conversation.

Get it right

One agent per job. A persona that describes one role, one set of callers and one set of tasks gives the model less to guess, and gives you a test you can repeat.

Recommended

You are Sara, the support agent for Acme, an online electronics shop in
Cairo. Introduce yourself as Sara. You answer questions about orders,
deliveries and returns. If a caller asks for anything else, say that is
outside what you can help with.

Less effective

You are a helpful assistant for Acme. Help with anything the customer
needs.

How the prompt is assembled carries two prompts end to end.

Worked example

Sara chooses Agents, presses Build New Agent, picks Start from scratch, names it Acme Support, chooses an Egyptian voice and presses Create. On Persona she pastes the recommended prompt above and sets Greeting message to Acme support, Sara speaking. How can I help?. She presses Test, chooses Chat, types Where is my order? and reads the answer; she presses End Test, chooses Call, asks the same aloud and hears the voice. On Channels she presses Add Channel, chooses Slack, names it Acme Slack, presses Connect, approves on Slack, and presses Confirm Connect. In Slack she messages the app; the reply arrives in the same thread, and on Conversations the exchange is listed with its turns and Total credits.

What happens next

  • The agent is Live. Every message to the connected channel is a conversation with it, answered with the persona, voice and settings saved at that moment, and charged by the turn; see Agent status.
  • The agent knows nothing of your business yet beyond the persona. Give it documents and web pages on the Knowledge tab; see How knowledge works.
  • It cannot act yet. Give it tools on the Tools tab; see Tools overview.

Limits

Limit Value Applies to
Active agents Your plan's active-agent limit; Build New Agent shows Plan limit reached at the limit Creating an agent
Voices At least one active voice in the library; with none, the create step reads No voices are available yet, so an agent cannot be created. Creating an agent
Playground One turn at a time in Chat; closing the overlay ends the session Testing

The limits of each tab are on its own page under Agents.

Troubleshooting

Plan limit reached

The workspace has as many live agents as its plan allows. Archive one with Pause Agent, which frees its place, or change the plan; see Agent status and Choose or change your plan.

Test is greyed out

The agent is archived. Press Restore in the header; see Agent status.

The agent answers in Chat but stays quiet in Slack

Check that Direct Messages is on in the connection's triggers, and that the message went to the app rather than to a channel it is not bound to; see Slack.

FAQ

Do I need a channel to use the agent?

No. Test runs the same agent a customer would reach, and each test is recorded on Conversations. Connect a channel when people outside the portal should reach it.

Which channel should I connect first?

The one you can message yourself, today, from your own phone or account. That shows you the whole loop before a customer does. Slack takes a sign-in; WhatsApp and a phone number need setup on the provider's side first. See Channels overview.

Can I let a model write the agent for me?

Yes. Create with AI interviews you and designs the prompt, greeting, voice and model settings; see Build an agent with AI.

Does the agent cost anything while nobody talks to it?

No. Configuration costs nothing; conversations do: their AI usage, and on a call the connected time. See What a turn costs.