Create an Agent Stack

This walks you through creating a new Agent Stack using the setup flow that best fits your team. You’ll end with a stack containing one or more specialists, optional knowledge access, and a chosen personality preset — ready to test before you enable it on channels.

Before you start

• A user role with the Agent Stacks permission. This is enough to create the stack and its specialists, but the wizard’s Knowledge step also writes Knowledge Base scoping and Handbook access rules, and those calls need the Knowledge Base — manage articles permission.
• A clear answer to “what is this stack going to do?” — one or two sentences. The wizard uses this to suggest specialists and seed instructions.
• (Optional) Knowledge Base categories you want the AI to read from. You can add these later.

Steps

1. Open Settings → Agent Stacks.
2. Click Add Agent Stack at the top of the stack list. (On a workspace with no stacks yet the empty state offers its own Add Agent Stack button instead.)
3. Choose one of the setup options:
   Guided setup is the recommended path. It scans your website or documents, asks for any missing details, builds a draft stack, and keeps channels turned off until an owner enables them.
   Manual setup lets you start from scratch or copy an existing stack using the step-by-step wizard.
   Let your AI do the work gives your AI revocable, scoped access so it can configure the stack for you.

Guided setup

Use Guided setup when you want Atender to draft the stack from the information you already have.

1. Add the website or documents the AI should learn from.
2. Answer any follow-up questions the setup flow asks. These fill in facts the scan could not find, such as your return period, delivery times, or opening hours.
3. Review the draft stack that Atender creates. The draft can include specialists, instructions, knowledge suggestions, and a starter configuration.
4. Make any edits you want, then create the stack.

Guided setup does not enable the stack on live channels. After creation, review and test the stack first, then enable it from the channel settings when you’re ready.

Manual setup

Use Manual setup when you already know the stack structure you want or need to copy an existing configuration.

On the first manual setup screen, choose how to create the stack:

• Start from scratch to build a new stack with the step-by-step wizard.
• Copy from existing to clone an existing stack and adjust it for a new use case or channel type.

This choice only appears once you already have at least one stack; the first stack always starts from scratch.

Start from scratch

1. Purpose — the wizard’s first step, which also carries the stack type. Choose the type:
   Text for chat, email, and other text-based channels.
   Voice for voice-based conversations. The type cards only appear when the AI voice feature flag is enabled.

If no type is selected or provided, the stack defaults to Text. Then write 1–2 sentences under What will this agent stack handle? and give it a Stack name (what your team will call it internally). Example: “Handle inbound support for our e-commerce store. Answer order questions, process simple cancellations, escalate billing issues to humans.” 2. Agents. The wizard suggests a starter set of specialists based on your purpose — Technical Support, Billing & Payments, Sales & Orders, etc. Tick each suggestion on or off, edit its name and its “What does this agent do?” description, delete ones you don’t want, or click Add custom agent to add your own. Routing topics are not part of this step; the description is what the orchestrator routes on. 3. Knowledge. Pick which Knowledge Base categories these specialists should read from, and which Handbook categories. For each, choose Full access to all categories, Select specific categories, or Skip for now. 4. Personality. Pick a persona preset — Friendly help desk, Expert advisor, Concierge, Efficient, Brand-playful, or None. The dimensions snap to the preset’s values; you can tune them on the Personality tab afterwards. 5. Review & create. Confirm the configuration and click Create Stack.

The wizard creates the stack, the specialists, the knowledge bindings, and the personality config. You’re dropped into the stack’s detail view — by default on the General tab.

Copy from existing

Pick the source under Stack to copy, type a Stack name for the copy, and click Next. On the What to copy step, choose whether to copy the Orchestrator, Handover and Personality settings (all on by default), then click Create copy. Copying clones the stack settings, its specialists, each specialist’s knowledge scoping, capability assignments and handbook access rules, and — when Handover is copied — the stack’s handover prerequisites. The copy inherits the source configuration, but it does not become the workspace default. If you want the copied stack to be the default, an admin can open the copy’s General tab and set it from the new Workspace tab card. Changing the workspace default also changes the inbox tab label and the stack that answers conversations that are not otherwise claimed by another stack. You can use copying to create a text or voice counterpart of an existing stack, then adjust the copied configuration before testing and enabling it on channels.

Voice availability follows the same rules as creating a stack from scratch: turning a text stack into a voice copy requires the AI voice feature flag, and the server refuses the copy without it. Copying an existing voice stack as another voice stack is always allowed.

Let your AI do the work

Use Let your AI do the work when you want your AI to configure the stack directly with controlled access.

This path grants API access using permission presets, lets you pick which coding agent tool you hand the brief to, and can set an end date for the access key. While the AI works, you can review what it is doing in the activity feed. When the key expires, the AI loses access unless an owner grants it again.

Verify it worked

• The new stack appears in Settings → Agent Stacks in the stack list.
• Open the Orchestrator tab. You should see the stack diagram with the orchestrator at the top and one node for each specialist.
• Open the Testing tab and chat as a customer. The orchestrator should pick a relevant specialist and reply in the personality you chose.

What’s next

After the stack exists, the typical next steps are:

• Wire it to channels. A stack only handles conversations on the channels you enable. See your channel settings (Email, Web Chat, Voice, etc.) to enable the AI agent on the channels you want.
• Configure handover. By default a new stack has handover off (never). Turn it on and pick a team if you want the AI to escalate to humans.
• Add capabilities. Capabilities let the AI act, not just talk — look up orders, process refunds, etc.
• Test and tune. Use the Testing tab to flag bad replies and apply the proposed fixes.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: “Knowledge Base scoping” or “Handbook access rules” appears in a “Couldn’t apply” toast after creation. Fix: the stack and specialists were created, but the post-creation knowledge wiring failed. This can happen when a custom role is missing modules.knowledge_base, or when there is another permission gap on KB categories. Open the Orchestrator tab, drill into a specialist, and configure Knowledge from there.
• Symptom: “Personality preset” failed to apply. Fix: open the Personality tab and pick the preset again. The tab applies the preset with the same save the wizard uses.
• Symptom: No suggested specialists appear on the Agents step. Fix: the suggestions are matched from keywords in your purpose text, and are only generated the first time you leave the Purpose step. Use Add custom agent to add your specialists by hand.

See also

• What are Agent Stacks?
• Add a specialist agent
• Set the stack personality
• Configure handover