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In this quickstart you’ll build a small Sales Triage agent with three actors: a Triage actor that figures out what the user wants, then hands off to a Product Specialist or a Pricing Specialist. It’s the same agent used as the running example in the rest of these docs.

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Before you start

  • A CogniAgent workspace. If you don’t have one, sign up.
  • About 10 minutes.
You don’t need to connect any integrations or set up a knowledge base for this quickstart. The agent runs end-to-end on the built-in model.

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1. Create the agent

1

Open Chat & Voice Agents

From the sidebar, click Chat & Voice Agents. You land on the agents list.
2

Click New Agent

Type Sales Triage as the name and click Create. The new agent opens. The canvas shows the Start node and a dashed Add your first actor card. The control rail runs down the left side of the canvas.You can rename the agent later with the pencil next to its name at the top.

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2. Set the global context

Global context is shared knowledge every actor inherits — your company name, product names, tone of voice. Setting it once means you don’t have to repeat it on every actor.
1

Open Agent settings

Click the gear (Agent settings) at the bottom of the rail.
2

Paste a short context block

Under Global Context, paste:
Changes save automatically: the header shows Saving…, then Saved. Close the panel.

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3. Add the Triage actor

1

Click Add your first actor

Click the dashed card on the canvas. A new actor appears, routed from Start, and its panel opens on the right with the name selected. Type Triage.
2

Fill in Context, Instructions, and Definition of Done

The panel opens on its Instructions section, which holds these fields.Changes save automatically.

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4. Add two specialists

Both specialists hang off Triage, so you add them from Triage’s toolbar.
1

Select Triage

Click the Triage card on the canvas. A toolbar appears above it: Edit, Add actor, Color and Delete.
2

Click Add actor

The new actor appears beside Triage, already routed from it, and its panel opens with the name selected. Fill it in from the Product Specialist tab below.
3

Repeat for Pricing Specialist

Click Triage again, then Add actor, and fill it in from the Pricing Specialist tab.
Your canvas now has Start → Triage, and a route from Triage to each specialist. Both new routes show a When? pill: they don’t say yet when to take them.
To connect two actors that already exist, drag from the dot on the right side of one actor onto the other. The route panel opens by itself.

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5. Describe the routes

Triage decides which specialist takes over, using what you write on each route.
1

Open the Product Specialist route

Click When? on the route from Triage to Product Specialist. The route panel opens on the right.
2

Write when to take it

Under When should this route be taken?, paste:
When the user asks about product features, integrations, capabilities, security, the roadmap, or how something works in the product.
It saves on its own. A moment later, a short label generated by AI from your prompt replaces When? on the route.
3

Repeat for Pricing Specialist

Click When? on the route from Triage to Pricing Specialist and paste:
When the user asks about price, plans, seats, discounts, free trial, or wants a quote for an Enterprise contract.
Your agent now looks like this:

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6. Test it

Click Test flow (the flask) in the rail. A drawer opens with a chat. The Draft chip next to its title means the test runs your latest edits — you don’t need to deploy first.
1

Send a pricing question

Type how much does Acme Pro cost? and press Enter.Within a couple of seconds, the Pricing Specialist replies with the pricing details from your global context. Under the reply, a one-line summary says who answered, for example Pricing Specialist answered. Click it to see why:
  • Started from Triage — the conversation began with Triage.
  • Routed to Pricing Specialist — Triage handed off, because the route’s prompt matched. The router’s reason is underneath.
2

Try a product question

Type actually, does it support SSO? and watch how routing handles a topic change mid-conversation.
Every test conversation is logged in Conversations (in the rail) with the full transcript, routing decisions, and any tool calls — useful for debugging later.

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What’s next

You have a working multi-actor agent. From here you can:

Connect a channel

Wire the agent to a Widget, Gmail, Slack, Teams, or Phone — so real users can talk to it.

Add capabilities

Give your actors access to knowledge bases, integration actions, and custom tools.

Deploy it

Publish it so it can handle real inbound messages or outbound campaigns.

Learn the concepts

Understand actors, routes, the canvas, context inheritance, and focus modes in depth.