Tips and Tricks for Creating an Effective Agent

Creating an agent in Sentienta is straightforward, but a few key strategies can help ensure your agent works optimally. Below, we’ll walk through the setup process and offer insights on defining an agent’s role effectively.

Step 1: Create a Team

Before creating an agent, you must first establish a team. To do this:

1. Navigate to the Your Agents and Teams page using the Manage Teams button on the homepage.
2. Click Create a Team. You’ll see three fields:
   • Name: Enter a name, such as “HR Team”
   • Type: Categorize the team (e.g., “Human Resources”).
   • Description: This defines the team’s purpose. A simple example: “This team manages Human Resources for the company.”
3. Click Submit to create the team.

Step 2: Create an Agent

Once you’ve created a team, it will appear in the Teams section along with the Sentienta Support Team. Follow these steps to add an agent:

1. Select your team (e.g., HR Team).
2. Click Create an Agent in the left menu.
3. Assign a name. Let’s call this agent Bob.
4. Define Bob’s title—e.g., Benefits Specialist.
5. Define Bob’s Persona, which outlines expertise and interactions.

Step 3: Crafting an Effective Persona

The Persona field defines the agent’s expertise and shapes its interactions. As discussed in our earlier post on Agent Interaction, the agent uses an LLM to communicate with both users and other agents. Since the persona is part of the LLM system prompt, it plays a crucial role in guiding the agent’s responses.

The persona should clearly define what the agent is able to do and how the agent will interact with the other members on the team. (To see examples of effective personas, browse some of the agents in the Agent Marketplace).

A well-crafted persona for Bob might look like this:

“You are an expert in employee benefits administration, ensuring company programs run smoothly and efficiently. You manage health insurance, retirement plans, and other employee perks while staying up to date with legal compliance and industry best practices through your Research Assistant. You provide guidance to employees on their benefits options and collaborate with the HR Generalist and Recruiter to explain benefits to new hires.”

Key persona components:

• Expertise: Clearly defines Bob’s role in benefits administration.
• User Interaction: Specifies that Bob provides guidance to employees.
• Team Collaboration: Mentions interactions with other agents, such as the HR Generalist and Recruiter.
• Delegation: Optionally, defines which agents Bob may delegate to—for example, a Research Assistant agent that retrieves compliance updates.

If additional agents (like the HR Generalist or Research Assistant) don’t yet exist, their roles can be updated in Bob’s persona as the team expands.

Once the persona is complete, click Submit to add Bob to the team. (We won’t discuss the URL optional field today, but will save for a future post.)

Step 4: Testing Your Agent

Now that Bob is created, you can test the agent’s expertise:

1. Navigate to the home page and select the HR Team below Your Teams
2. Make sure Bob’s checkbox is checked and enter a query, such as “What is your expertise?”
3. Bob will respond with something like:

“I am a Benefits Specialist, responsible for employee benefits administration, including health insurance, retirement plans, and other perks. I ensure compliance with regulations and provide guidance to employees on their benefits options.”

If asked an unrelated question, such as “What is today’s weather?” Bob will remain silent. This behavior ensures that agents only respond within their expertise, promoting efficient team collaboration.

Next Steps

Once your agent is set up, you can explore additional customization options, such as adding company-specific benefits documentation to Bob’s knowledge base. Stay tuned for a future post on enhancing an agent’s expertise with internal documents.