Agent Steps

Steps are the building blocks of an agent workflow. Each agent contains an ordered list of steps that execute sequentially — the output of one step becomes the input to the next. Steps can also reference outputs from any earlier step using substitution variables.

Step Types

Agent steps are organized into five categories, matching the step selector in the editor:

Common Fields

Every step type shares these base fields:

Child Steps (Composite Steps)

Most step types are composite — they can contain nested child steps. Child steps execute after their parent and receive the parent's output as input.

The following step types support child steps: Prompt Call, Retrieval, Transform, Extract Content, Gate, Combinator, Text, Web Fetch, Web Search, Write Metadata, Write Content Attachment, Load Content Attachment, Load Content, Publish Content, Write Memory, Search Memory, Load Memory.

The following step types do not support child steps: Display Result, Join, Retry, Evaluate Step.

String Substitutions

Most step fields support dynamic variable substitution using {{placeholder}} syntax. This lets steps reference agent input, other steps' outputs, metadata, and runtime values.

Available Variables

Date & Time Variables

Date and time variables accept an IANA timezone and an optional locale code. Currently, the locale code selects the format pattern (for example, ordering and separators), but month and day names are rendered in English by the backend implementation.

Function-style syntax is also supported: {{datetime(UTC)}} or {{datetime(UTC, es)}}. As with the inline syntax, the locale argument currently affects only the pattern, not the language of month or day names.

Unrecognized placeholders are left unchanged in the output, making it safe to include template syntax that should not be resolved.

Metadata Filters

The Retrieval step supports MongoDB-style metadata filters to narrow results based on document metadata fields. Any step that accepts a filter field uses this same syntax.

Filter Operators

Logical Operators

Filter Examples

Simple field match (implicit AND):

{
  "category": { "$eq": "technology" },
  "status": { "$ne": "draft" }
}

Using $or:

{
  "$or": [
    { "category": { "$eq": "technology" } },
    { "category": { "$eq": "science" } }
  ]
}

Complex nested filter:

{
  "$and": [
    { "published_date": { "$gte": "2026-01-01" } },
    {
      "$or": [
        { "category": { "$in": ["news", "analysis"] } },
        { "priority": { "$gt": 5 } }
      ]
    },
    { "author": { "$exists": true } }
  ]
}

With substitution variables:

{
  "category": { "$eq": "{{metadata.category}}" },
  "published_date": { "$gte": "{{metadata.start_date}}" }
}

Step Execution Order

Steps execute as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). In the simplest case, steps run sequentially top-to-bottom. With child steps and parallel branches (via join/combinator), the execution order follows these rules:

1. Root steps execute first, in order
2. Child steps execute after their parent completes, receiving the parent's output as input
3. Join steps signal completion to their target combinator
4. Combinator steps wait for all connected join steps before executing
5. A step only executes after all its dependencies have completed

Step Caching

The Prompt Call and Retrieval steps support result caching to reduce costs and improve performance:

Caching is particularly useful for:

• Retrieval steps that run on the same knowledge base frequently
• Prompt calls with deterministic outputs (e.g., classification tasks with temperature: 0)
• Reducing credit usage for repeated operations

AI Assistant

The AI assistant helps you configure steps by generating configurations from natural language descriptions. It understands your full agent workflow — including all steps and their relationships — and can suggest appropriate values.

Supported step types:

To use the AI assistant, open a supported step and click the AI Assistant button. Describe what you want in natural language, and the assistant will generate or refine the configuration.

Next Steps

• Agent Triggers — Configure when and how agents run
• Agents Overview — Back to the agents overview
• Knowledge Bases — Connect data sources for retrieval steps
• Content Sources — Understand how content flows into knowledge bases
• Memory Banks — Create and manage persistent memory for your agents
• API Examples — Code samples for working with agents