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Agent

The Agent is a built-in AI assistant with direct access to your workflow. Ask it questions, have it build nodes, run your workflow, or inspect what's on the canvas — all in plain conversation.

Open the sidebar

The sidebar lives on the right side of the Griptape Nodes canvas. Click the chat bubble tab (the first icon in the Sidebar Panels header) to open it.

Choose a model

At the top of the chat panel, click the Model dropdown to see all available models, grouped by provider:

  • The top group contains Griptape Cloud models (Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama, and more) — available by default, no setup needed
  • Any additional providers you've configured appear as their own labeled sections below
  • Use Search models... to filter by name
  • Click Manage providers... at the bottom to open Providers

Send a message

Type in the Write a message... input at the bottom and press Enter or click the send button. You can also attach files using the paperclip icon.

The agent streams its response in real time. When it takes an action — like reading your canvas or running your workflow — you'll see the step appear inline so you always know what it's doing.

For example, you can ask it to:

  • "What nodes are in my workflow?" — it reads the canvas and tells you what's there
  • "Add a Text Input node and connect it to the Agent" — it creates and wires the nodes for you
  • "Run my workflow and tell me what the output was" — it executes your workflow and reports back
  • "Change the prompt on my Agent node to..." — it updates node parameters directly
  • "Explain what this workflow does" — it reads your workflow structure and gives you a plain-language summary

How does the agent control my workflow?

Griptape Nodes runs a built-in MCP server alongside the engine. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI models call tools — in this case, tools for reading your canvas, creating nodes, running workflows, and more. The agent connects to this server automatically; there's nothing to configure.

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