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Lesson 1 4 min

What an agent is

An agent is an assistant with a job, with its own instructions, model, skills, knowledge and rules. It lives in your browser and decides which of its tools to use.

A single step, or an agent?

A chain, such as the Basic LLM Chain node, sends your input to the model once and returns the answer. An agent is an assistant with a job: its own instructions, model, skills, knowledge and rules. For each task it decides what to do next: call a tool, read the result, and try again until it has an answer.

Aria is your built-in agent: you can edit it, but not delete it. A persona is simply an agent without skills.

Where agents live

Open Agents in the sidebar. Each agent has a card with Chat to talk to it. To make a new one:

  • Describe an agent in one sentence, and Aria drafts it for you to adjust.
  • Start from a template: Chief of staff, Inbox triager, Price watcher, Study buddy…
  • Click Blank agent, or Import an agent or team file.
The Agents tab of Agents & teams: a Describe an agent box with a Create agent button, the card for Aria (Your assistant, On-device AI) with a Chat button, and four templates to start from: Chief of staff, Inbox triager, Price watcher and Study buddy. Import and Blank agent buttons are at the top right.The Agents tab of Agents & teams: a Describe an agent box with a Create agent button, the card for Aria (Your assistant, On-device AI) with a Chat button, and four templates to start from: Chief of staff, Inbox triager, Price watcher and Study buddy. Import and Blank agent buttons are at the top right.
Agent cards, with Chat

Open an agent to reach its builder tabs: Identity, Instructions, Model, Skills, Knowledge, Memory, Rules and Routines. You can also use an agent by typing its @handle in any chat.

Your data

Agents, their chats and their memories are stored only in this browser. Agents use the logins you already have when they browse. With a cloud model, messages go from your browser to that provider with your key; with an on-device model, nothing leaves your device.

Key takeaways

  1. An agent has its own instructions, model, skills, knowledge and rules, and chooses which tools to use.
  2. Aria is your built-in agent; you can edit it but not delete it. A persona is an agent without skills.
  3. Agents, their chats and their memories are stored only in this browser.