> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cogniagent.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Custom helpers
> Give your AI coworker a named specialist to call on — a fact-checker, a copy critic, a numbers checker — for one part of a bigger job.
Sometimes one part of a job wants a different pair of eyes. A helper is a named specialist your coworker can hand that part to.
## What it does
A skill tells your coworker *how* to do something. A helper does a piece of the work *for* it — separately, with its own brief, and reports back.
The value is in the separation. A copy critic that never saw the draft being written judges it more honestly than the writer re-reading their own work. A fact-checker that only checks facts doesn't get distracted by whether the argument is persuasive.
You give a helper a name, a description of when to use it, and instructions for its narrow job.
## The ready-made coworkers use them
Every one of the [five ready-made coworkers](/cowork/coworkers/ready-made) ships with helpers, which is the clearest illustration of what they're for:
| Coworker | Helpers |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| Research Analyst | a source scout, and a fact-checker |
| Executive Assistant | a background researcher |
| Support Agent | a knowledge-base researcher, and a reply reviewer |
| SDR | a prospect researcher, and a copy critic |
| Data Analyst | a numbers checker |
The pattern repeats: one helper that **goes and finds things**, one that **checks the work before you see it**.
## When you'd write one
* A reviewer that checks work against your standards before it reaches you
* A researcher that goes off and gathers while your coworker keeps writing
* A checker for the thing that's expensive to get wrong — figures, names, prices
* A second opinion on a judgement call
* A specialist for a part of the job with genuinely different rules
## Creating one
On the coworker's **Files** tab, alongside its skills. Give it a name — lowercase letters, numbers, dashes and underscores, starting with a letter or number — a description of when to use it, and its instructions.
Write those instructions narrowly. A helper asked to "review the draft" gives you vague notes. A helper asked to "check every figure against the source and list any that don't match, and nothing else" gives you something useful.
**Name it after its job, not its role.** `numbers-checker` and `copy-critic` tell your coworker exactly when to reach for them. `assistant-2` doesn't.
## Helpers, delegation, or dynamic workflows?
Three ways more than one thing works on a job.
| | What it is | Best for |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| **Helpers** | A named specialist for one part of a job | Checking, second opinions, focused research |
| **[Working with coworkers](/cowork/capabilities/working-with-coworkers)** | Handing work to a real coworker you hired | Work that belongs to a different job |
| **[Dynamic workflows](/cowork/capabilities/dynamic-workflows)** | A team of temporary helpers, planned on the fly | One job that's simply too large |
## Common questions
No. Helpers are part of how a coworker works, not a capability you enable.
A task that uses one does more work, so it costs a bit more. Far less than [dynamic workflows](/cowork/capabilities/dynamic-workflows), which runs a whole team at once.
A helper works within what its coworker is allowed to do. It can't reach anything the coworker itself can't.
A skill is a procedure your coworker follows itself. A helper is a separate specialist it hands a piece of work to and gets an answer back from.
## Next steps
The other half of teaching.
A checking pass without writing one.
Helpers at scale.
Helpers worth copying.