Give a Specialist Knowledge Access

Each specialist independently controls which knowledge it can read — both from the public Knowledge Base and from the internal Handbook. Tighter scope = faster, more accurate retrieval. A billing specialist that only reads the billing KB category will get better results than one that reads everything.

Before you start

• The specialist must already exist in the stack. If not, add a specialist first.
• Know which KB categories and Handbook categories are relevant to this specialist. If you haven’t built either yet, see Knowledge Base and the Handbook docs.

Steps

1. Open Settings → Agent Stacks and click into the stack.
2. Click the Orchestrator tab.
3. Click the specialist node on the canvas. The slide-out shows the specialist’s drilldown.
4. Click the Knowledge sub-tab.
5. Configure Knowledge Base access:
   Toggle the master switch on. (When off, the specialist has no KB access at all.)
   Pick Full to grant the specialist access to every KB category, or Select to pick specific categories and subcategories.
   In Select mode, check the categories the specialist should read. Subcategories are nested under their parent.
6. Configure Handbook access in the same pattern below: master switch, Full or Select, then pick categories.
7. Click Save (each section saves independently).

Verify it worked

• The Setup sub-tab’s summary card at the top of the slide-out should now show a non-zero Knowledge count.
• Open the Testing tab and ask a question that depends on KB content the specialist should have access to. The reply should cite or quote it.
• Ask a question that depends on KB content the specialist should not have. The reply should not include it.

Knowledge Base vs. Handbook — which goes where

The split matters because they’re treated differently:

• Knowledge Base — Customer-facing — Quoted and linked in replies
• Handbook — Internal — Used to guide behavior. Never quoted directly to customers

A refund-policy article: customer-facing → KB. The detailed step-by-step procedure for processing refunds: internal → Handbook. The AI uses both, but only the KB ends up in customer-visible replies.

Tighter scope tradeoffs

• Full access — One-click setup. Good when KB is small or all categories are relevant — Slower retrieval, more chance of irrelevant articles surfacing
• Select — Faster retrieval, more accurate citations, fewer cross-domain mistakes — More setup, must update when you add new categories

For stacks with mature KBs, Select is the right choice. For stacks just starting out, Full is fine — you’ll narrow it down as you see retrieval mistakes.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: The specialist cites an article from a category you didn’t grant. Fix: check the Knowledge sub-tab — if Full is selected, the specialist can see everything regardless of which checkboxes appear ticked. Switch to Select to enforce.
• Symptom: The specialist can’t find an article you know exists. Fix: confirm the article’s category is checked in the specialist’s Knowledge config. Then check the article itself isn’t in archived or draft status — only published articles are retrievable.
• Symptom: The specialist quotes Handbook content directly to a customer. Fix: Handbook content is supposed to guide behavior, not be quoted. Check the Handbook article — if it includes phrases like “Tell the customer that…” the AI may follow them literally. Rewrite the Handbook content as guidance (“When the customer asks X, the policy is Y”).

See also

• What is a specialist agent?
• What is the Knowledge Base?