Agent Builder: topics, instructions, prompts, and testing

Agent Builder is where admins shape an agent: its topics, their instructions, and the actions they can use. Prompt Builder holds reusable prompt templates grounded in Salesforce data. Every change should be tried in the conversation preview, and larger changes run through batch tests, before the agent goes live.

Topics and instructions

• Classification description: Tells the agent when a request belongs to this topic. Vague descriptions send requests to the wrong topic.
• Scope: States what the topic should and shouldn't do, which keeps the agent on task.
• Instructions: Plain-language guidance for how to handle the job, such as "Always confirm the order number before giving a status." Keep each one short, specific, and free of contradictions.
• Assigning actions: Add only the actions a topic needs, and describe each action clearly so the agent knows when to use it.

Prompt templates

• Prompt Builder: Creates prompt templates: instructions to the model plus merge fields and other grounding that pull in Salesforce data at run time.
• Template types: Include sales emails, field generation (fill a field with generated text), record summaries, and flexible templates that agents and flows can call.
• Grounding: Add record fields, related lists, or the output of a flow so responses reflect real data instead of guesses.
• Versions: Templates are versioned. Edit and preview a new version, then activate it when it is ready.
• Permissions: Separate permission sets let people build and manage templates or only run them.

Testing and rollout

• Conversation preview: Chat with the agent inside Agent Builder and see which topic it chose, which actions ran, and why. Good for quick checks after each change.
• Testing Center: Runs batches of test utterances and compares the chosen topics, actions, and responses with what you expected.
• Activation: An active agent can't be edited directly. Deactivate it or work on a new version, test, then activate.
• Sandbox first: Build and test agents and templates in a sandbox, then move them to production like other metadata.