Creating Custom Agents
Step-by-step guide to creating and configuring custom AI agents in Zeiko.
You can create custom AI agents tailored to your business needs. Zeiko currently offers three main creation paths:
- Create Agent for a single custom specialist
- Create Team for a starter manager/specialist team
- Support Wizard for a guided support-agent setup
Before You Start
- Make sure you are in the correct workspace
- Connect any integrations the agent will need before deployment
- If you cannot create agents, ask a workspace admin to grant the required access
Where to Go
- Open Agents in your workspace
- Use Create Agent for a flexible single-agent setup
- Use Create Team when you want a starter team template instead of one agent
- Use Support Wizard when you want a guided support-agent flow
Using the Character Creator
Navigate to Agents → Create Agent to open the interactive form.
1. Identity
- Name — Give your agent a descriptive name (e.g., "Customer Support", "Sales Bot")
- Race — Choose a visual theme: Human, Nature, Tech, or Builder (cosmetic only)
- Avatar Style — Pick from Bot, Character, Avatar, Pixel, or Flat styles
2. Mission Class
Select a preset that matches your agent's role:
- Support Front Desk — Customer support, triage, and resolution
- Sales Representative — Lead qualification and inbound sales
- SEO Growth — SEO audits, keyword planning, performance reporting
- Shopify Operator — Store health monitoring and operations
- Social Content Studio — Content planning and publishing
- Zeiko Creative — Video scripts and channel growth
- Community Manager — Audience engagement and moderation
- Market Researcher — Competitive analysis and market positioning
- Content Creator — Creative asset drafting
- Operations Manager — Health tracking and supply management
3. Personality
Choose a communication style:
- Balanced — Clear, practical, and concise
- Friendly — Warm and supportive while staying precise
- Analytical — Structured reasoning with evidence-oriented decisions
- Creative — Exploratory thinking with fresh ideas
- Direct — Short, decisive responses focused on execution
4. Loadout and Channel Plan
- Model — Select the AI model (default is recommended)
- Channels — Zeiko now auto-enables only the recommended channels that are already deployable for your workspace
The create flow distinguishes:
- Deployable now — channels you can use immediately because the matching integration is already connected
- Recommended after connect — channels that fit the mission preset but still need a workspace integration
This keeps the mission preset intact without forcing unsupported external channels on day one.
When you are unsure which mission preset to choose, start with the closest business function and refine the agent after creation.
Using Create Team
Navigate to Agents → Create Team to bootstrap a starter multi-agent team.
Current templates include:
- Support Core — manager + triage + resolver for customer operations
- Content Studio — manager + research + writer for content pipelines
Team creation follows the same deployable-channel rules as single-agent creation:
- only deployable channels are enabled by default
- missing integrations are surfaced as setup guidance
- failed team bootstrap rolls back instead of leaving a partial team behind
Using the Support Wizard
Navigate to Agents → Support Wizard for a guided 6-step setup:
- Identity — Name, description, personality, and avatar
- Knowledge — Add website, GitHub, or other knowledge sources
- Channels — Enable deployment channels
- Handoff — Configure human escalation (strategy, assignee emails, skill keywords)
- Workflows — Toggle recommended workflow templates
- Review — Confirm and create
Use the Support Wizard when your main goal is customer support, escalation, and channel deployment.
Important behavior:
- Step 1 creates a draft support agent so you can continue setup without exposing a half-configured live agent
- Final deploy is what activates the support agent
- Support Wizard channel recommendations only require providers that are actually deployable for the current workspace
- missing integrations deep-link back to Integrations so you can connect once and continue setup
- customer-facing channels are shown separately from internal surfaces
- Website Widget is the main customer-visible support surface
- In-app Chat is an internal workspace surface and is only shown in Zeiko-operated support workspaces
- support-irrelevant channels such as GitHub and Social are intentionally excluded from the Support Wizard
- handoff routing from the wizard currently applies to Website Widget conversations
Support Wizard Channel Model
- Customer-facing: Website Widget, Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, Webhook/API
- Internal: In-app Chat
Use Website Widget when you want customers or site visitors to talk to the support agent.
Use In-app Chat only when your own team needs an internal support/testing surface inside the Zeiko workspace. It is not a public customer channel.
Support Wizard Knowledge Sources
The wizard now captures:
- Title
- Source type
- Source URL or identifier
- Description
The URL field changes its label and guidance based on the selected source type so support operators know whether to paste a website URL, repository URL, API endpoint, or another source reference.
After Creation
Once your agent is created, configure it further from the agent detail page:
- Settings — Update name, description, model, and capabilities
- Personality — Edit the SOUL.md to define identity, rules, and knowledge
- Memory — View what the agent has learned over time
- Workflows — Bind workflows and knowledge sources
- Deploy — Manage channel configurations
- Runs — View execution history and logs
New agents also carry specialization metadata from their mission preset, including a mission-aware role, operator persona, and channel strategy. If recommended starter workflows fail during bootstrap, the creation flow now surfaces that clearly so you can fix setup before going live.
Common Issues
I created the agent, but it cannot do much yet
- Add or verify integrations
- Attach knowledge sources if the agent needs business context
- Bind workflows if the agent needs repeatable execution steps
- Enable the right deployment channels if the agent needs to run outside chat
If the create flow shows recommended after connect channels, connect the matching provider first and then return to the agent’s Deploy tab or setup flow.
I do not know whether to use a custom agent or a built-in one
Use a built-in agent when your task matches a shipped product workflow such as SEO, Shopify, Sheets, or YouTube. Use a custom agent when you need a new role, tone, or tool combination.
I tried to create a team and something failed
Starter team creation now rolls back partial work automatically. If a team create fails, fix the reported blocker and retry instead of cleaning up orphan agents manually.
My support agent is escalating too often
Review its knowledge sources, SOUL.md instructions, handoff settings, and approval rules.
Why is my support handoff only working on Website Widget?
The Support Wizard handoff strategy config currently applies to the Website Widget channel. Other support channels can still be enabled, but they do not reuse the same widget-specific live handoff routing payload.