Prompt
Crafting a prompt to instruct your Agent
Overview
The prompt is the core set of instructions that your agent follows every time it works on a task. Think of it like the instructions you’d provide to an employee about how they should work. You might tell them about their responsibilities and expectations, rules and guidelines, common processes and ways to communicate (do’s and don’ts).
Agent Profile
Agent Name
Your agent’s name serves as its identity throughout the platform. Choose a name that:
- Clearly reflects the agent’s purpose or role
- Is memorable and easy to reference
- Distinguishes it from other agents in your workspace
For example, “Sales Qualification Assistant” immediately communicates the agent’s function, while “ResponseBot” might be too vague.
Agent Summary
The summary is a descriptive explanation of what your agent does and its area of expertise. This information:
- Guides the agent’s behavior and responses
- Sets expectations for users (you) interacting with the agent
- Helps the underlying AI model understand its purpose
Model Selection
Choosing the right model powers how your Agent thinks, responds, and performs tasks. You can either let Relevance AI automatically optimize the model for you, or manually choose a specific provider and model type.
Pick For Me
Relevance AI automatically selects the best model for your Agent based on performance or cost, no action needed. You’re more than welcome to choose the model the suits your Agent’s needs.
Cost-optimized
Prioritizes cheaper models if you want to minimize token costs/credit costs. (e.g., GPT 4o mini - or whichever model is cheaper at the time)
Peformance-optimized
Prioritizes the best-performing model available for quality responses (e.g., Claude v3.5 Sonnet - or whichever is more performant at the time).
Choose Your Own Model
You can manually choose from different model families depending on your needs. Each option charges based on your Relevance AI credits per 1,000 tokens — tokens are pieces of text (words/characters) your Agent processes when sending and receiving messages. See each option in the dropdown for current credit/token costs.
- More credits = more complex, detailed tasks.
- Fewer credits = cheaper, lighter interactions.
Prompt instructions
Invent a Prompt
Use the Invent feature to automatically generate a smart, structured prompt based on a few words you provide. Perfect for getting started quickly if you’re not sure how to write detailed instructions.
Write Your Own Prompt
You can also manually type your prompt from scratch if you want full control over how your Agent behaves and what tasks it focuses on. Clear, specific prompts produce the best results.
Reference Tools in Your Prompt
While writing your instructions, you can reference specific Tools (e.g., “Use the Extract Text from PDF tool to pull invoice data.”). This lets the Agent know exactly which tools to use when completing tasks.
Use the Slash ( / ) Menu
Type / to open the Slash menu and quickly insert shortcuts like:
- Referencing available Tools
- Adding Tool Placeholders
- Adding Markdown Styles for your Prompt
This speeds up writing structured and action-driven prompts.
Create or Invent New Tools from the Slash Menu
If you insert a Tool Placeholder using the Slash menu, you can immediately Invent a new tool or create one manually — no need to leave the prompt!
(Note: Currently, Invented Tools will still need to be customized in the separate Tool Builder section)
Connect Tools Conveniently
Add Tools to Your Agent
Tools allow your Agent to perform real-world actions like searching the web, sending emails, extracting data, or connecting with other systems — expanding your Agent’s capabilities far beyond simple conversation.
When writing your Prompt, you can reference specific Tools directly to guide how your Agent should complete tasks. You can also insert Tool Placeholders to invent new tools or connect existing ones as needed.
For a full guide on adding, configuring, and best practices for using Agent Tools, check out the Tools article.