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What you will achieve in this quickstart guide:

  1. Design an AI Agent in the Workbench, including: The AI Agent state machine, tools (API function calling), and system instructions.
  2. Use the visual tester to test the behavior and tool calling.
  3. Chat to the AI Agent from an external source (fully hosted Chainlit).
  4. Apply the design and configuration to an AI Agent in code.

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Using the AI Agent Workbench

1

Log in to the xpander.ai platform.

Go to https://app.xpander.ai and sign in with your credentials.

2

Open the AI Agent Workbench.

In the left navigation menu, go to AI Agents, then click the New AI Agent button.

3

Use the Planner to automatically design your AI Agent via a single prompt

For this quickstart, use the following prompt: “Build an AI Agent that is able to get the top stories and their item details from Hacker News”

This action will automatically: design the AI Agent state machine, add the relevant tools to the AI Agent, and write the AI Agent system level instructions.
It could take up to a minute for the Planner agent to complete the AI Agent design and configuration.

4

Your result should be similar to:

5

Manually add another operation (tool) to the AI Agent: Hover over the bottom operation in the graph -> click the + button. Then, go to xpander functions -> send email -> click Done.

6

Save your AI Agent configuration by clicking the Deploy button.

7

Use the Agent Tester (left pane) to prompt your AI Agent and view its behavior live

Insert a test prompt such as: Get the top 3 news items from hackernews and send them over to <your email>

You will see the decision making process in the graph indicated by the moving Purple dot, as well as the request/response process and payloads in the left pane.

If email sending doesn’t work despite having added the Email sending operation to the AI Agent’s tools, go to the AI Agent’s settings, and in the Instructions settings, add the following:
“if asked to send an email, use the send_email operation”

You successfully used the AI Agent Workbench to build and test your agent!
Continue the tutorial to trigger and use your AI Agent from external sources.

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Chat to you AI Agent from a fully-managed Chainlit instance.

1

Open Chainlit

Click the Chat trigger node at the top of the graph, and click the URL for your hosted Chainlit instance.

2

You can continue prompting your AI Agent from this external source.

You successfully chatted to your AI Agent from an external source.