Agent Wizard

The Agent Creation wizard is three hidden guided pages that take you from a new custom agent, through teaching it, to putting it in front of people: Train an Agent, Add Knowledge, and Publish Your Agent. None of them appear in the Agent Builder sidebar. They share the same stepper-and-card layout; they are not three tabs on one screen.

There is no Basic / Advanced switch on these pages — the wizard is the guided path. Fine-tuning afterwards lives on Agents, Knowledge, Publish, and Settings. Add Knowledge is the same wizard you can open from the Knowledge page (Add knowledge / Guided setup).

Overview

How the three pages connect:

  1. Train an Agent (agentic-agent-wizard) — create and (usually) activate a custom agent. Open it from Agents → Add an agent, or from the Dashboard Quick Action Train an Agent.
  2. Add Knowledge (agentic-knowledge-wizard) — save one wiki concept (paste, upload .txt/.md, or pick existing pages). After Train an Agent, Add Knowledge on the success card opens the Knowledge page; start this wizard from there (Add knowledge in Basic, Guided setup in Advanced), or from the Dashboard Getting Started item Add knowledge.
  3. Publish Your Agent (agentic-deploy-wizard) — turn on one surface (chat widget, admin bar, Ask AI launcher, or Gutenberg block). After Train an Agent, Publish This Agent opens this page with that agent pre-selected (?agent=).

Browser titles: Train an Agent, Add Knowledge, Publish Your Agent. Loading copy: Loading the agent wizard… / Loading the knowledge wizard… / Loading the publish wizard…. Without JavaScript, each page warns that the wizard needs JS and points back to Agents, Knowledge, or Publish.

Train an Agent and Publish Your Agent require an administrator (manage_options). Add Knowledge allows anyone who can manage plugin settings.

They do not remove or replace bundled agents. Creating an agent writes files and a signed abilities.json the same way other admin tools do; the event shows up in Activity as Agent created.

Agent Creation wizard sections

1. Train an Agent

Heading: Train an Agent. Intro: Create a new AI agent in a few quick steps. You can refine everything later from the Agents and Settings pages.

Five steps in the strip (Wizard steps): Basics → Persona → Capabilities → Knowledge → Review. Footer: Back / Continue, then Create agent on Review. Load failure: Could not load the wizard. Create failure: Something went wrong creating the agent.

Basics

  • Agent name — A friendly name, e.g. “Support Helper”. Required
  • Identifier (slug) — Used in URLs and files. Auto-filled from the name. Required; editing it marks it as custom so further name changes do not overwrite it
  • What does this agent do? — A short description shown in the agents list. Required
  • Category — content, admin, ecommerce, frontend, developer, seo, security, media, support (first letter capitalized in the list, so Seo not SEO). Default admin
  • Icon — default 🤖

Continue stays disabled until name, description, and slug are filled.

Persona

  • Instructions (system prompt) — Describe how the agent should behave, its tone, and what it should focus on.
  • Welcome message (optional) — The greeting shown when a chat starts. The create request does not persist this field; a generated greeting (Hi! I'm {name}…) is stored instead. Set the live welcome afterwards on Knowledge → Instructions.
  • Suggested prompts (optional) — three fields to start (Suggested prompt 1 …), placeholder e.g. Summarize my latest posts. + Add another prompt up to six. Empty ones are dropped; if you leave all blank, the create tool fills three defaults (What can you help me with?, {description} — where should I start?, Show me what you can do on this site.)

You can leave persona fields blank and edit them later on Knowledge → Instructions.

Capabilities

  • AI provider — your configured providers (unconfigured ones are tagged (needs API key)). Help: Leave as-is to use your site default.
  • Model — that provider’s list, when it has one
  • Autonomy
    • Supervised — asks before taking actions (recommended) (default)
    • Autonomous — acts on its own
    • Disabled — replies only, never acts
  • Hint: This only controls how often the agent pauses to ask you. Higher-risk actions still queue for your approval, and the riskiest actions are always blocked, no matter which autonomy level you pick.
  • Tools this agent can use (optional) — checkboxes (name + description). Hint: If you don’t pick any, a safe set of read-only tools is added so your agent works right away. That default set is search_content, list_posts, get_post_content, get_site_context.

Provider and model here become per-agent overrides (same idea as Settings → Agents). Site default still comes from Providers.

Knowledge (inside Train an Agent)

On this WordPress.org build the step is an info notice, not an upload form:

Knowledge uses the Agentic AI service. Connect your license to train agents on your content. Add knowledge later from the Knowledge page.

The license flag for in-wizard vector training is off in this build. Use Add Knowledge (the next page in this doc) or Knowledge after the agent exists. You can Continue past this step with nothing selected.

Review

Read-only rows: Name (icon + name), Identifier, Description, Category, Instructions (or (none)), Provider / Model, Autonomy, Tools (or (none)), Knowledge (or (none)). Create agent (busy while it runs).

After a successful create

Heading: {icon} {name} is ready!

  • If activated: Your agent has been created and activated. Add knowledge to make it smarter, or start chatting right away.
  • If not: Your agent was created. Activate it from the Agents page, then add knowledge or start chatting.

Optional notices:

  • Default tools: A safe set of read-only tools was added so your agent works right away. You can change its tools later from the Agents page.
  • A warning from the create tool, when there is one
ButtonWhere it goes
Add Knowledge (primary)The Knowledge page (not this wizard’s Add Knowledge URL — start the wizard from that page)
Open ChatAgent Chat (no agent= in the URL — pick the new agent in the chat header if it is not already selected)
Publish This AgentPublish Your Agent with this agent selected
Fine-tune PersonaSettings (legacy Instructions URL; per-agent welcome and persona notes are on Knowledge → Instructions)
View all AgentsAgents

2. Add Knowledge

Heading: Add Knowledge. Intro: Teach your agents a fact, policy, or FAQ in a few quick steps. You can add more or fine-tune it later from the Knowledge page.

This is the free wiki path (the same OKF concept format as the Knowledge editor). It is not the licensed vector-training step inside Train an Agent.

Two steps: Source → Title & tags. Back / Continue, then Save knowledge. Save failure: Something went wrong saving this knowledge.

Source — Where is this knowledge coming from?

Three source buttons:

  • Paste text — Paste the text. Help: A fact, policy, FAQ answer — anything you want your agents to know is true.
  • Upload a file — Upload a text or Markdown file (.txt, .md, .markdown). Other types: Please choose a plain text or Markdown file (.txt or .md). Read error: Could not read that file. After a good file: Loaded “{name}” — you can review and edit the text below. plus File contents. The title is prefilled from the filename if you have not set one.
  • Pick existing pages — Search your pages and posts (placeholder Leave blank to see recent pages). Checkboxes show title (type) and excerpt. Count: {n} page(s)/post(s) selected. Empty: No matching pages or posts. Search error: Could not load pages.

Continue stays disabled until paste/upload has text, or at least one page is selected.

Title & tags

  • Title (required) — A short, clear name, e.g. “Return policy” or “Support hours”.
  • Tags (optional) — Comma-separated, e.g. billing, returns, policy.

Save knowledge stays disabled without a title.

After a successful save

📚 “{title}” is saved! Your agents can now use this. Add another, or review it in the full Knowledge Wiki.

  • Add another (primary) — resets the wizard
  • View Knowledge Wiki — Knowledge
  • Back to Dashboard

Wizard concepts are not marked Example. Long pasted or page content is truncated so one concept stays a usable size.

3. Publish Your Agent

Heading: Publish Your Agent. Intro: Get an agent in front of people in a few quick steps. You can fine-tune it later from Publish.

This writes the same storage as the Publish tabs. It never turns a surface off for some other agent already using it.

Two steps: Agent & surface → Configure. Back / Continue, then Publish. Load failure: Could not load the wizard. Save failure: Something went wrong publishing this agent.

No active agents:

No active agents yet. Activate or train an agent first, then come back to publish it. Go to Agents

Agent & surface

  • Which agent? — active agents (icon + name). Pre-selected when you arrived from Publish This Agent
  • Where should people reach it? — four surfaces (click to select; hint shows under the active one)
SurfaceHint
Chat widgetA floating chat bubble visitors can open on your site.
Admin barA quick-chat menu in the WordPress toolbar for logged-in admins.
Ask AI launcherA contextual “Ask AI” prompt on admin screens like Plugins or Media.
Gutenberg blockMakes this agent insertable as a block in any post or page.

Continue stays disabled until an agent is selected.

Configure

Depends on the surface:

Chat widget / Admin bar

  • Position — Bottom right / Bottom left
  • Show on
    • Admin bar: Everywhere, Admin only, Front end only
    • Chat widget: Everywhere, Front end only, Single posts/pages only, Homepage only
  • Chat widget only: Only show to logged-in visitors

Ask AI launcher

  • If launchers are not configured yet: Which admin screens? plus a checkbox per screen (label + description)
  • If they already are: Ask AI launchers are already turned on for some admin screens. Saving makes {agent} the agent that answers them, replacing the current choice — the screens themselves stay as configured.

Gutenberg block

Nothing else to configure — saving makes this agent available to insert as a block from any post or page editor.

After a successful publish

🚀 {agent} is published on {surface}! Fine-tune this further, or publish on another surface.

  • Publish on another surface (primary) — back to step 1
  • Manage in Publish — Publish Advanced tabs
  • Back to Dashboard

Common tasks

Creating a custom agent

  1. Open Agents → Add an agent (or Dashboard → Train an Agent)
  2. Fill Agent name, What does this agent do?, and Continue
  3. Optionally set instructions, welcome, and suggested prompts
  4. Leave provider/model on the site default unless this agent needs its own; keep Supervised unless you have a reason not to
  5. Skip picking tools unless you want a specific set (read-only defaults are added otherwise)
  6. Continue through Knowledge (the wiki wizard is the next page, after create)
  7. Create agent
  8. Use Open Chat to try it, Add Knowledge / Knowledge’s wizard to teach it, and Publish This Agent to put it in front of people

Teaching the new agent a policy

  1. Finish Train an Agent (or skip straight from Knowledge)
  2. On Knowledge, click Add knowledge (Basic) or Guided setup (Advanced)
  3. Choose Paste text, Upload a file, or Pick existing pages
  4. Continue, give it a Title, Save knowledge
  5. Add another or View Knowledge Wiki to edit the concept

Putting the agent on the site

  1. From the Train an Agent success card, click Publish This Agent (or open Publish Your Agent later)
  2. Confirm Which agent?
  3. Pick Chat widget, Admin bar, Ask AI launcher, or Gutenberg block
  4. Continue, set position / pages / screens if asked
  5. Publish
  6. Manage in Publish if you need Scheduled Tasks, Event Listeners, or Shortcodes (those are not in this wizard)

Publishing a second surface

  1. After success, click Publish on another surface
  2. Pick a different surface for the same (or another) agent
  3. Publish again

FAQ

Why isn’t this in the left menu?

All three pages are registered as hidden admin screens so they do not clutter the menu after you have agents. Open Train an Agent from Add an agent or the Dashboard Quick Action; Add Knowledge from the Knowledge page; Publish Your Agent from the create-success Publish This Agent button (or a direct agentic-deploy-wizard URL).

Is this the five-step wizard or three pages?

Both. Train an Agent is five inner steps (Basics → Persona → Capabilities → Knowledge → Review). Add Knowledge and Publish Your Agent are separate two-step pages. Together they are the creation flow.

Add Knowledge after create did not open the wizard.

That success button opens the Knowledge page. The wizard is Add knowledge (Basic) or Guided setup (Advanced) on that page — the same agentic-knowledge-wizard screen this doc describes.

The Knowledge step inside Train an Agent asked me to connect a license.

On this WordPress.org build, in-wizard vector training is not enabled (Connect your license to train agents on your content.). Use the Add Knowledge wizard (paste / .txt/.md / existing pages) or the Knowledge wiki instead. That is the free path.

Create agent failed with “An agent named … already exists.”

The slug (identifier) is already taken. Change Identifier (slug) on Basics, or pick a different Agent name so the auto-filled slug changes. Other create errors include An agent name is required., A short description is required., and Could not derive a valid slug from the agent name.

Create agent said it added default tools.

You left the tool list empty. The wizard assigns a small read-only set so the agent can activate (a signed abilities.json needs at least one valid tool). Change tools later from Tools and the agent’s own configuration.

Can I publish a shortcode or a scheduled task from this wizard?

Not from Publish Your Agent — that page only covers chat widget, admin bar, Ask AI, and Gutenberg block. Use Publish Advanced (or Agent Orchestrator in Publish Basic) for shortcodes, schedules, event listeners, and the editor sidebar.

Who can open these pages?

Train an Agent and Publish Your Agent: administrators. Add Knowledge: administrators, and anyone granted permission to manage plugin settings. Everyone else gets “You do not have permission to access this page.”