Getting Started4 min read

How Agents Work

Understand the architecture behind Symbi's AI agents — from templates and hiring to task execution, review, and learning.

The Agent Lifecycle

Every agent in Symbi follows a consistent lifecycle, from discovery to daily operation.

1. Templates

An Agent Template is a blueprint for a type of agent. It defines:

  • What the agent does (e.g., "responds to FreshDesk support tickets")
  • Which integrations it requires (e.g., FreshDesk + Slack)
  • Default behavior, tone, and review settings

Templates are curated by the Symbi team and appear in the Showroom.

2. Hiring

When you hire an agent, you go through a short setup flow:

  • Pick a template from the Showroom and click Hire
  • Connect integrations the agent needs (skip if already connected)
  • Configure the agent — name, role, tone, review mode, knowledge bases
  • Activate — the agent is now live and ready to work

The setup wizard walks you step-by-step and lets you return later if you want to pause and come back.

3. Operating Agents

Once active, an agent belongs to your company and has:

  • A profile on the Agents page
  • Connected integrations (credentials stored encrypted)
  • Configuration for behavior, tone, review preferences, and knowledge
  • Performance metrics tracked over time in the Dashboard

How a Task is Processed

When something triggers an agent — a new ticket, a scheduled run, an incoming email — Symbi follows this flow:

  1. Event received — Symbi picks up the event from the connected service (webhook, polling, or schedule)
  2. Trigger filter — the agent checks whether this event matches what it's supposed to handle. For example, an agent may only respond to tickets with the "Billing" category
  3. Context building — the payload is enriched with your company profile, the agent's knowledge base, integration data (CRM records, previous messages), and relevant history
  4. AI processing — the agent runs the task, choosing which tools to call and what actions to take
  5. Review gate — depending on the agent's review mode, actions are either auto-approved or sent to the Operation Center for human review
  6. Delivery — approved actions are sent back to the originating service (reply posted, status updated, note added, etc.)

Info

All actions an agent takes are logged and inspectable from the Activity tab in the Operation Center — you always have a full trace of what the AI did and why.

Triggers

An agent starts work when a trigger fires. Symbi supports three kinds:

  • Event trigger — an external system sends a webhook (e.g., new FreshDesk ticket, new email, Linear issue created)
  • Scheduled trigger — the agent runs on a time schedule (e.g., every morning at 8 AM, every 4 hours)
  • Manual trigger — you click Run Now on the agent's detail page to kick off a task on demand

Scheduled and manual triggers are ideal for agents that produce reports, do regular clean-up, or run recurring workflows. See Scheduled Triggers.

Human-in-the-Loop Review

The review system is central to Symbi. Every action an agent proposes can be:

  • Approved — delivered as-is
  • Edited — adjusted by a human before delivery
  • Declined — rejected, no action taken

Reviews happen in the Operation Center (in-app) or directly in Slack via interactive messages. Both stay in sync — approving in Slack updates the app, and vice versa. See Operation Center.

Knowledge

Each agent can be equipped with one or more Knowledge Bases — collections of documents, URLs, FAQs, and learned content that give the agent context about your business.

Knowledge is consulted in real time as the agent processes a task. You can add, update, or remove sources whenever you need. See Knowledge Base Management.

Learning From Reviews

When you edit an action during review, Symbi captures both the original and your correction. With Learn from Reviews enabled, those edits become a learned knowledge source the agent references in future tasks.

This creates a feedback loop: the more you review and refine, the better the agent gets. Over time, most teams see fewer edits needed and better defaults.

Performance Tracking

Symbi tracks key metrics for every agent:

  • Interactions — total tasks handled
  • Success rate — percentage of actions approved without edits
  • Hours saved — estimated time saved vs. manual handling
  • Cost saved — financial value of those hours

These metrics surface on the Dashboard and on each agent's detail page. See Performance and Analytics.

What's Next?