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Instructions define an AI agent’s role, how it speaks to customers, and when it hands over to your team. When you create an agent, describe the problem it should solve. AI uses that description to generate initial instructions. Review these on the setup page and adjust them to match your support policy before assigning tickets. To make changes later, open the agent under AI Agents, edit Instructions, and select Save instructions. Instructions can contain up to 10,000 characters. Saved changes apply from the agent’s next turn.

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What to include

  • Specialty: which requests the agent should handle.
  • Communication style: tone, level of detail, and how to ask for missing information.
  • Boundaries: what it should avoid promising or attempting.
  • Escalation rules: concrete situations that need a human.
  • Completion guidance: how to check that the customer has what they need.
Keep instructions applicable across the agent’s enabled apps. Use skills for detailed procedures that only apply to particular requests.

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Example: login troubleshooting

Adapt this example to your actual support policy and published troubleshooting guidance.

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How the agent helps

You do not need to repeat the agent’s usual behavior in your instructions. It already aims to:
  • Answer from your published knowledge base in the customer’s language.
  • Ask follow-up questions and keep helping while the ticket remains open.
  • Hand over requests that need human support, such as account changes, compensation, or a request to speak to a person.
  • Close the ticket when the issue is handled and the customer confirms they need no further help.
Use your instructions to add specific support policies and handoff conditions.

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Make guidance actionable

Prefer concrete conditions over vague instructions such as “escalate difficult cases.” For example:
Explain the desired behavior as well as the boundary:
For requests that need account changes or refunds, describe when to hand over to a human. Instructions cannot enable the agent to perform those actions itself.