Plan a custom agent

Intermediate · ~10 min · Prerequisites: admin access to AgentForce

What you'll do

Evaluate whether you need a custom agent, scope its role clearly, and make sure you have everything you need before opening the builder.

Do you need a custom agent?

Start with a catalog agent. The four default agents — Customer Support, Sales Assistant, Research Analyst, and Content Creator — cover most common roles. Open the hub at /agentforce and try whichever fits best.

Build a custom agent when:

• You need a fixed role that catalog agents don't cover (e.g., an onboarding guide, a legal drafting assistant, a data-pull agent).
• You need your own instructions — specific rules, constraints, or formats that don't fit a general-purpose agent.
• The job requires its own set of tools — a custom blend of workspace actions, connected apps, or MCP servers that no catalog agent has.

If one of the defaults gets close enough with a good prompt, you don't need a custom agent. See Building an agent for a full overview of the builder before you start.

Scope the role

A focused agent outperforms a broad one. Give your agent one job.

Write one sentence that starts with "This agent helps [who] do [what]." If you can't finish that sentence cleanly, the role is too wide. Examples of focused scopes:

• "This agent helps the support team draft first responses to incoming tickets."
• "This agent helps the marketing team turn rough notes into polished blog outlines."
• "This agent helps engineers look up internal API docs without leaving their workflow."

Define the boundaries explicitly: what it should do, and what it should hand off or decline. Boundaries become rules in the instructions later.

Gather what it needs

Before you open the builder, collect:

• Instructions draft — write the role, the rules, and one or two examples of good output in plain text. You'll paste this into the Instructions section.
• Tools list — decide which workspace actions, connected apps, or MCP tools the agent needs. Keep the list to what the job actually requires.
• Knowledge sources — identify any knowledge base content or skills the agent should be grounded in. You'll attach these later.

Having these ready means you can build, test, and publish in one session instead of returning to the builder repeatedly.

Check your slots

Your org can have up to 20 custom agents. Go to /admin/agents and check the counter — it shows N / 20. If you're at the cap, you'll need to delete or disable an existing agent before you can create a new one.

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