Hire, don't prompt
An agent is an employee: a name, a role and a goal it carries through to completion.
✦ Tutorial · Beginner
Hire your first AI agent
Create one agent with a name, a role and a goal, read its row, steer it while it works, and give it a schedule.
Start tutorialYOUR OUTCOME
You will hire one agent, get a cited document from it, steer it once, and set a routine that keeps working.
Write a goal with a deliverable and a finish line Read Needs you, Running, Finished today and Ready Steer a session instead of restarting it
4 min
Read the row
Needs you, Running, Finished today and Ready tell you where every agent is without opening it.
Steer without restarting
Open the session and say the change; the agent adjusts the work it already has.
Give it a schedule
A routine is an agent that wakes itself: pick a frequency and preview the next three runs.
Keep the list tidy
Folders, Rename, Duplicate agent and Filter agents keep a growing team readable.
What each lesson covers
The tutorial, lesson by lesson.
Hire, don't prompt
An agent is an employee: a name, a role and a goal it carries through to completion.
A chat answers a message; an agent carries a goal through to a finished deliverable and comes back only when it needs you. The goal is the contract: what to produce, which sources to use, and where it ends. "Deliver a two-page brief as a Word document with every figure cited" gives the agent a finish line; "look into the shoe market" does not.
Practice. Open the left panel, switch to Agents and click New agent, then Create agent. Name a real job you would hand to a new hire, write its goal with the deliverable, the sources and the finish line, choose Now, once, and Continue.
Name: Mia · Head of Research. Goal: I'm starting an online shoe store on dropshipping: everyday sneakers and casual shoes, Australia first, then New Zealand, from a $25,000 start. You are our head of research. Research this market with sources: size and growth of online footwear in Australia, the top five competitors and their price points, the realistic dropshipping supplier options with lead times to Australia and typical landed cost per pair, and the three biggest risks. Deliver a two-page opportunity brief as a Word document with every figure cited. Never invent a figure; cite it or flag it. When to work: Now, once.
Read the row
Needs you, Running, Finished today and Ready tell you where every agent is without opening it.
The Agents list is a status board. Running rows keep moving and show elapsed time; Needs you means a question is waiting for you and nothing moves until you answer; Finished today holds completed work with its files in Doc Manager; Ready lists the agents with nothing on right now, waiting for their next job. Hover a row for Rename, Delete and Stop. You check the board, not the agent.
Practice. Watch your first agent move from Running to Finished today. If it stops under Needs you, open the row, read the question, and answer it in one line.
Priya asks: "What ad budget should I model for the first 90 days?" Reply in her session: $6,000 for the first 90 days, then 8% of revenue.
Steer without restarting
Open the session and say the change; the agent adjusts the work it already has.
Every row opens the agent's working session. A message there steers the run: a correction, a change of direction, or "finish with what you have and list what's missing". Stop halts it. You never rehire to change one thing.
Practice. Open a finished or running agent and ask for one change to its deliverable. Watch the row return to Running and then to Finished today with the new version.
In Sam's session: Change the pre-order button to "Reserve my pair" and republish.
Give it a schedule
A routine is an agent that wakes itself: pick a frequency and preview the next three runs.
Work that repeats belongs to a routine. New routine asks for a name, instructions and a frequency, Every hour, day, week or month, at a time in your timezone, and shows the next three runs before it saves. Each run is its own session and shows under Finished today on the day it runs.
Practice. Create a routine for something you check every week anyway. Set Every week, pick the day and time, read the next three runs, then Save routine and use Run now to see the first report today.
New routine. Name: Monday scan. Instructions: Check the top three competitors' prices and new releases and report what changed, with links. Frequency: Every week, Monday, 08:00.
Keep the list tidy
Folders, Rename, Duplicate agent and Filter agents keep a growing team readable.
The list grows fast. Folders you make in Chat show in Agents too: New folder, then drag an agent onto it on desktop or use Move to folder on the phone. The title menu offers Rename, Delete and Duplicate agent, which makes a second agent with the same instructions for a new job. Filter agents narrows the list by name.
Practice. Make a folder for one project, move your agents into it, and duplicate one agent for a second market or client, renaming the copy.
New folder: Shoe store. Drag Mia, Theo and Priya into it. Duplicate Mia, rename the copy Mia · NZ research, and give it the New Zealand brief.
Keep going
Make the learning stick
Start with one real piece of work.
Open Oppermind beside the lesson, apply each step, and leave with something you can use.