Agent Development

In the Agent Development page, you can create, configure, and manage agents. Agents are the core feature of Nexent—they can understand your needs and perform corresponding tasks.

🔧 Create an Agent

On the Agent Management tab, click "Create Agent" to create a new blank agent. Click "Exit Create" to leave creation mode. If you have an existing agent configuration, you can also import it:

1. Click "Import Agent"
2. In the file selection dialog, select the agent configuration file (JSON format)
3. Click "Open"; the system will validate the file format and content, and display the imported agent information

⚠️ Note: If you import an agent with a duplicate name, a prompt dialog will appear. You can choose:

• Import anyway: Keep the duplicate name; the imported agent will be in an unavailable state and requires manual modification of the Agent name and variable name before it can be used
• Regenerate and import: The system will call the LLM to rename the Agent, which will consume a certain amount of model tokens and may take longer

📌 Important: For agents created via import, if their tools include knowledge_base_search or other knowledge base search tools, these tools will only search knowledge bases that the currently logged-in user is allowed to access in this environment. The original knowledge base configuration in the exported agent will not be automatically inherited, so actual search results and answer quality may differ from what the original author observed.

👥 Configure Collaborative Agents/Tools

You can configure other collaborative agents for your created agent, as well as assign available tools to empower the agent to complete complex tasks.

🤝 Collaborative Agents

1. Click the plus sign under the "Collaborative Agent" tab to open the selectable agent list
2. Select the agents you want to add from the dropdown list
3. Multiple collaborative agents can be selected
4. Click × to remove an agent from the selection

🛠️ Select Agent Tools

Agents can use various tools to complete tasks, such as knowledge base search, file parsing, image parsing, email sending/receiving, file management, and other local tools. They can also integrate third-party MCP tools or custom tools.

1. On the "Select Tools" tab, click "Refresh Tools" to update the available tool list
2. Select the group containing the tool you want to add
3. View all available tools under the group; click ⚙️ to view tool details and configure parameters
4. Click the tool name to select/deselect it
   • If the tool has required parameters that are not configured, a popup will appear to guide you through parameter configuration
   • If all required parameters are already configured, the tool will be selected directly

💡 Tips：

1. Please select the knowledge_base_search tool to enable the knowledge base search function.
2. Please select the analyze_text_file tool to enable the parsing function for document and text files.
3. Please select the analyze_image tool to enable the parsing function for image files.

📚 Want to learn about all the built-in local tools available in the system? Please refer to Local Tools Overview.

🔌 Add MCP Tools

On the "Select Agent Tools" tab, click "MCP Config" to configure MCP servers in the popup and view configured servers.

You can add MCP services to Nexent in the following two ways:

1️⃣ Add MCP Service via URL

🔔 This method is suitable for independently deployed MCP services (supports SSE and Streamable HTTP protocols):

1. In the Add MCP Server section at the top of the interface, fill in Server name and Server URL

⚠️ Note: The server name must contain only English letters or digits; spaces, underscores, and other characters are not allowed.

2. Click the + Add button on the right to complete adding a single service

2️⃣ Add Containerized MCP Service via JSON Configuration

🔔 This method is suitable for containerized MCP services deployed via npx:

1. In the Add Containerized MCP Service input box, fill in a JSON configuration that matches the example format:

{
"mcpServers": {
  "service-name": {
    "args": [
      "mcp-package-name@version",
      "additional-parameters"
    ],
    "command": "npx"
  }
}
}

2. In the Port input box below, enter the port number corresponding to the containerized service
3. Click the + Add button on the right to complete adding the containerized service

Many third-party services such as ModelScope provide MCP services, which you can quickly integrate and use. You can also develop your own MCP services and connect them to Nexent; see MCP Tool Development.

⚙️ Custom Tools

You can refer to the following guides to develop your own tools and integrate them into Nexent to enrich agent capabilities:

• LangChain Tools Guide
• MCP Tool Development
• SDK Tool Documentation

🧪 Tool Testing

Nexent provides a "Tool Testing" capability for all types of tools—whether they are built-in tools, externally integrated MCP tools, or custom-developed tools. If you are unsure about a tool's effectiveness when creating an agent, you can use the testing feature to verify that the tool works as expected.

1. Click the gear icon ⚙️ next to the tool to open the tool's detailed configuration popup
2. First, ensure that all required parameters (marked with red asterisks) are configured
3. Click the "Test Tool" button in the lower left corner of the popup
4. A new test panel will appear on the right side
5. Enter the tool's input parameters in the test panel. For example:
   • When testing the local knowledge base search tool knowledge_base_search, you need to enter:
     • The test query, such as "benefits of vitamin C"
     • The search search_mode (default is hybrid)
     • The target index list index_names, such as ["Medical", "Vitamin Encyclopedia"]
     • If index_names is not entered, it will default to searching all knowledge bases selected on the knowledge base page
6. After entering the parameters, click "Execute Test" to start the test and view the test results below

📝 Describe Business Logic

✍️ Describe How the Agent Should Work

Based on the selected collaborative agents and tools, you can now describe in simple language how you expect this agent to work. Nexent will automatically generate the agent name, description, and prompts based on your configuration and description.

1. In the editor under "Describe how should this agent work", enter a brief description, such as "You are a professional knowledge Q&A assistant with local knowledge search and online search capabilities, synthesizing information to answer user questions"
2. Select a model (choose a smarter model when generating prompts to optimize response logic), click the "Generate Agent" button, and Nexent will generate detailed agent content for you, including basic information and prompts (role, usage requirements, examples)
3. You can edit and fine-tune the auto-generated content (especially the prompts) in the Agent Detail Content below

🐛 Debug and Save

After completing the initial agent configuration, you can debug the agent and fine-tune the prompts based on the debugging results to continuously improve agent performance.

1. Click the "Debug" button in the lower right corner of the page to open the agent debug page
2. Test conversations with the agent and observe its responses and behavior
3. Review conversation performance and error messages, and optimize the agent prompts based on the test results

After successful debugging, click the "Save" button in the lower right corner, and the agent will be saved and appear in the agent list.

📋 Manage Agents

In the agent list on the left, you can perform the following operations on existing agents:

🔗 View Call Relationships

View the collaborative agents/tools used by the agent, displayed in a tree diagram to clearly see the agent call relationships.

📤 Export

Export successfully debugged agents as JSON configuration files. You can use this JSON file to create a copy by importing it when creating an agent.

📋 Copy

Copy an agent to facilitate experimentation, multi-version debugging, and parallel development.

🗑️ Delete

Delete an agent (this cannot be undone, please proceed with caution).

🚀 Next Steps

After completing agent development, you can:

1. View and manage all agents in Agent Space
2. Interact with agents in Start Chat
3. Configure Memory Management to enhance the agent's personalization capabilities

If you encounter any issues during agent development, please refer to our FAQ or ask for support in GitHub Discussions.