The Agent's Library: Knowledge

If the Instructions are the agent's personality and goal, the Knowledge is the library (what to know).

In this section you load all the information the agent needs to respond: prices, return policies, menus, technical manuals, or information about your company.

Ways to Add Information

When you click the + Add information button in the top right corner, you have four options:

1. Create new article

Opens a text editor where you can write or paste information directly.

• Ideal for: Quick FAQs, short sales scripts, or information that changes very frequently.
• Format: Supports Markdown (bold, lists, tables).

2. Use existing article

If you have several agents in the same Workspace, you don't need to upload the files again.

• Lets you select a piece of knowledge you already created for another agent (e.g., "Company History") and reuse it here.

3. Add web page

Enter a public URL. Platica will "read" (scrape) the text content of that page and save it as knowledge.

• Ideal for: Blogs, landing pages, or "About us" sections of your website.
• Note: If your web page changes, you'll need to refresh the knowledge so the agent has the new version.

4. Upload files

Upload documents directly from your computer.

• Supported formats: PDF, TXT, DOCX, CSV.
• Ideal for: Large catalogs, user manuals in PDF, or corporate presentations.

Organization Strategy

To have a fast and accurate agent, follow these best practices:

Divide and Conquer

Instead of uploading a single 500-page PDF called "Total Manual," break it into knowledge by topic:

• installation_manual
• warranty_and_support
• pricing_guide

This helps the agent retrieve information faster and get confused less often.

Keep the Status Up to Date

In the knowledge list you'll see a Status column.

• ACTIVE: The agent can read and use this information.
• INACTIVE / DRAFT: The agent will ignore this file. Use it when you're editing prices or policies that aren't in effect yet.

How do you connect the Knowledge to the Prompt?

Just by having the knowledge in Active status, the agent will already try to use it automatically thanks to semantic search (using the Description you wrote).

That said, for extra precision, you can reinforce it in the Instructions:

"Your goal is to sell courses. To do this, consult the information available in course_list_2024 and answer questions using the student_faq file. If the answer isn't in those documents, say you don't know."

Knowledge Details

For the agent to find the right information at the right moment, each piece of knowledge has three key elements. Understanding this is vital so your agent doesn't "hallucinate."

1. Knowledge ID: The technical name (preferably without spaces) the system uses to identify the file.

   • Example: dinner_menu, refund_policy, catalog_2024.
   • Important: This ID is what you'll use in the Prompt if you need to give it a specific instruction (e.g., "When they ask about food, always look in dinner_menu").

2. Description (The Semantic Search): ⚠️ This is the most important field. Here you should explain to the AI what this file is about and when it should read it. The agent doesn't read every file all the time; it reads your description to decide whether to open the "book" or not.

   • Bad description: "Document 1."
   • Good description: "Contains the up-to-date price list and shipping restrictions for international customers. Use it when they ask about costs."

3. Content: The information itself (the text, the PDF, or the link).