> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.uptiq.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.uptiq.ai/ai-workbench-qore/start-here/core-concepts.md).

# Agent Foundations

What an agent is, and the ideas the builder screens configure.

The [Agent Builder](/ai-workbench-qore/console/agent-builder.md) documents **what you do** — each screen, each field, each setting. This section documents **what an agent is**: the ideas those screens configure, and how they fit together.

Read a concept page when you want to understand *why* a setting exists and what it trades off. Read the builder page when you want to know what a specific control does and what its default is. Each concept links to the screens that configure it.

## The parts of an agent

An agent is a small number of things working together.

* [**Steering & Reasoning**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/steering-and-reasoning.md) — How the agent decides what to do. Instructions, autonomy, how deeply it thinks, and how the planner turns a request into a sequence of actions.
* [**Skills & Tools**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/skills-and-tools.md) — What the agent can *do*. The planner can only ever choose from this set.
* [**Knowledge & Context**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/knowledge-and-context.md) — What the agent can *read*. Retrieval from your documents, data, and governed graphs.
* [**Memory & Learning**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/memory-and-learning.md) — What the agent *carries forward*, across a conversation and across users.
* [**Guardrails & Validation**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/guardrails-and-validation.md) — The controls around a run: PII masking before model requests, approval before selected skills, and model policy.
* [**Human-in-the-Loop**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/human-in-the-loop.md) — The points where a person stays in the decision.
* [**Protocols**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/protocols.md) — How the agent talks to the outside world, and how your product talks to it.
* [**Evals**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/evals.md) — How the agent's output quality is scored, before release and on live traffic.

Beyond a single agent, an [**Operator**](/ai-workbench-qore/core-concepts/operator.md) coordinates a team of agents from one conversation, in Console and in Control Center.

## How they fit together

A request arrives. **Steering** decides how to approach it — the planner reads your instructions, uses **Memory** where it is turned on, and builds a plan. The plan calls **Skills**, which may retrieve from **Knowledge** or reach outside through **Protocols**. **Guardrails** mask PII before it reaches a model, and keep every model request within your organization's model policy. Where you've turned on Tool Execution Approval, a **person** allows or denies a skill call before it runs. **Evals** score the output, against test datasets before release and on live traffic after.

For the end-to-end workflow, see [How Agents Work](/ai-workbench-qore/start-here/how-an-agent-works.md).

{% hint style="info" %}
**Two catalogs, one idea.** Several concepts here appear in more than one place in the product — for example, an agent's connectors are configured per-agent in [Apps & Services](/ai-workbench-qore/console/agent-builder/build/apps-and-services.md), while the shared catalog lives in [Integrations](/ai-workbench-qore/console/integrations-hub.md). Same idea, different altitude. The concept pages say which is which.
{% endhint %}

***

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<p align="right"><em>Maintained by</em> <mark style="color:green;">Abhishek Paul</mark><br><code>AI-assisted, human-approved</code></p>
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<div align="left"><img src="https://1326225582-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F0qmgQjJ5aArDTj2ACFHG%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-d034645b4f8f8ee661985f5306b60ded3289653c%2Fmaintainer-abhishek-paul.png?alt=media" alt="" width="60"></div>
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---

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