Creating Agents

Every agent in Horizon lives inside an app. Before you create an agent, you need either an existing app to add it to or a new app to house it. This guide covers both paths: starting from a Store template and building from scratch.

Two paths to creating an agent

From the Store

The fastest way to get started. Store templates come with pre-configured agents, skills, and instructions that you can customize after installation.

1. Navigate to Store in the left sidebar.
2. Browse or search for an app that matches your use case (e.g., “Accounting Assistant”).
3. Click Install and choose the workspace and department.
4. The app’s agents are created automatically with default settings.
5. Open the agent to review and customize its instructions, skills, and model.

Tip

Store templates are a starting point, not a locked configuration. After installation, you have full control to modify instructions, add or remove skills, change the model, and adjust memory settings.

From Scratch

For custom workflows that do not match any Store template.

1. Navigate to Apps in the left sidebar and click Create App.
2. Give your app a name and description.
3. Inside the app, click Add Agent.
4. Configure the agent’s name, description, instructions, model, and skills.
5. Save and activate the agent.

Naming your agent

A good agent name is short, descriptive, and tells users what the agent does at a glance.

Good names	Less effective names
Accounting Assistant	Agent 1
Invoice Manager	My Bot
Sales Report Builder	Helper
AP Reconciliation Agent	Test Agent

The agent name appears in conversation lists, Slack threads, activity feeds, and audit logs. Choose something your team will immediately recognize.

Writing a description

The agent description serves two purposes:

1. For humans — it appears in the dashboard and helps team members understand what the agent is for.
2. For the platform — Horizon uses the description when routing messages in multi-agent apps to determine which agent should handle a given request.

Write descriptions that clearly state the agent’s scope and boundaries:

“Handles all QuickBooks-related queries including profit & loss reports, invoice management, customer lookups, and transaction reconciliation. Does not handle Sage Intacct or payroll.”

Assigning skills

After creating the agent, you assign skills that define what the agent can do. Navigate to the agent’s Skills tab to:

• Browse available skills grouped by category (QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Web, Platform).
• Toggle skills on or off — only enabled skills are available to the agent during conversations.
• Review skill parameters — click any skill to see its parameter documentation.

Caution

Agents can only use skills for services that have an active connection in your workspace. If you assign a QuickBooks skill but have not connected your QuickBooks account, the agent will receive an authentication error when it tries to use that skill.

Assigning to a department

Each agent belongs to a department, which controls:

• Access — which team members can interact with the agent.
• Connections — which service connections the agent can use.
• Billing — which cost center is charged for the agent’s token usage.

Select the department during agent creation, or change it later from the agent’s Settings tab.

Next steps

Once your agent is created, you will want to:

• Write effective instructions to shape the agent’s behavior.
• Choose an AI model that balances quality and cost for your use case.
• Configure memory to control how much context the agent retains.
• Deploy and test the agent in a live environment.