The Agent Editor

The agent editor shows every setting an agent has, section by section, on one page. Use it to write or refine the instructions, set the greeting and voice, add tools, choose a phone number, and change the advanced settings the builder leaves on their defaults. Edits go into the agent's draft, so a published agent keeps answering on its live version until the changes are published.

Before You Start

• Role: Admin or Organisation Admin. See Roles and Permissions.
• An agent, or a type for a new one. The editor opens on an existing agent, or blank for a new one.

Opening the Editor

• From a draft: select a draft that was set up manually in Agents, or choose Open in editor from the actions menu of a draft built with IQ.
• From the builder: select Fix on a publish check, or open the editor from IQ's review. Back to IQ at the top of the editor returns to the builder while the agent is still a draft.
• From a published agent: open the agent, select the Quick Config tab, then Open full editor. See Quick Config.

Starting a Blank Agent

1. Open Agents.
2. Select New agent.
3. Choose the type, then select Set it up by hand under the description box.

In an environment with no agents yet, select Configure manually on the welcome screen and choose Frontline agent or Background agent.

The editor opens empty. Nothing is saved until the first change, and Test and Publish stay unavailable until that change has saved. A message confirms "Saved as a draft."

How the Editor Is Laid Out

• The header shows the agent's name, its state (Draft, or Live with Unpublished changes when the draft differs), whether the latest edit has saved, and the actions.
• The section list on the left jumps to each section. Sections are grouped under Essentials and Advanced.
• The sections in the middle hold the settings.
• The right-hand panel has two tabs, Overview and Ask IQ. On narrower screens it folds into a Checklist and IQ button.

The sections a given agent shows depend on its type. A Background agent has no Voice or Phone number section.

Saving

Every edit saves to the draft on its own, a moment after you stop typing. The header shows Saving…, then Saved. If a save fails, it shows Couldn't save with a Retry link.

Section Markers

The section list marks any section with a setting that differs from the live version, and shows a count on any section with settings that need fixing. When IQ changes a section, that section is briefly highlighted so the change is easy to find.

Name and Purpose

How the agent appears across NeonNow.

• Name. The name the agent is shown by everywhere in the Admin app. Required.
• Description. What the agent does, in a sentence or two. Shown on the agent card and in search.
• Brand name (Frontline). The organisation or brand the agent represents.

Instructions

What the agent does and how it behaves. The instructions are the brief the agent follows on every call or run.

Greeting

Frontline agents only. The greeting is the first thing callers hear, and the hint under it reads "Under 15 words works best on the phone." A word count sits beside the field.

• Play reads the greeting aloud in the agent's chosen voice. Stop ends the playback.
• Suggest one asks IQ to write a short greeting that is easy to say out loud.

A good greeting names the business and says the caller is speaking to a virtual assistant, for example "Thanks for calling ACME Vets, you're speaking with our virtual assistant. How can I help?"

System Prompt

The system prompt is the full set of instructions. The Instructions view switch shows it two ways:

• Blocks splits the prompt into labelled parts, each with its own box: Role, What callers need (or What it handles for a Background agent), How to handle each request, When to hand over, Boundaries, and for a Frontline agent How to sound.
• Edit as one prompt shows the whole prompt as a single text box. This is exactly what the agent receives. Keep the headings that start with ## to be able to switch back to blocks.

Each block has buttons that ask IQ to rewrite only that block:

• Tighten shortens it without losing meaning.
• Rewrite for speech (Frontline) rewrites it so it sounds natural when spoken.

IQ shows its suggested change beside the original. Keep accepts it, and Undo puts the original back.

The editor also checks the instructions for common problems and shows a note on the block concerned, with Fix with IQ to have IQ correct it. It looks for:

• A list in the request handling, which a voice agent tends to read aloud
• A vague handover, which does not say what triggers it or where the call goes
• A greeting over 15 words
• Empty boundaries, so the agent has nothing it must never do
• Formatting or emoji in text the agent says aloud

Voice

Frontline agents only. The voice callers hear and how it speaks.

Each voice is a card showing its name, accent and style. Play a card to hear the voice say the agent's greeting, then select it to use it.

Tools

Systems the agent can call during a conversation, such as a booking system or a CRM. See Tools and Knowledge.

Phone Number

Frontline agents only. Where callers reach this agent. A number can only belong to one agent at a time.

• Phone number. Choose a number from the organisation's Twilio account. For a draft the hint reads "Optional. Pick it now, when you publish, or later." For a published agent it reads "A new number takes effect when you publish."
• Record calls. Whether calls handled by the agent are recorded.

Choosing a number here only changes the draft. See Phone Numbers and Deployment for how the number is chosen and what happens when it is already in use.

Model

The language model the agent uses to reason and respond.

• Frontline: Language model, and Knowledge base agent ("Allow the agent to consult the configured knowledge base."), which is on by default. See Tools and Knowledge.
• Background: Model provider and Model. Choose a model from the list. A model IQ suggested is marked Recommended.

Leave the model on its default unless there is a reason to change it, such as a Background agent that needs a more capable model for complex documents.

Advanced Settings

Advanced settings ("Telephony, listening, speaking and more") is a collapsible group below the essentials. It holds the settings that most agents never need to change. Each one starts on the default it ships with, and the default is shown in the field until a value is entered. Reset to default under a changed field puts it back.

The groups shown depend on the agent's type.

Frontline Agents

Group	What it covers	Settings to know
Telephony	How calls reach the agent	No everyday settings. Leave on the defaults.
Call handling	Call limits and idle behaviour	Maximum call duration: the longest a call can run before it ends, in milliseconds. 300000 is five minutes. The builder's Longest call option sets the same value.
Listening	How caller speech and turns are detected	Listening model: the speech recognition model used to understand callers.
Speaking	The voice and speaking pace	No everyday settings. The voice itself is chosen in the Voice section.
Capabilities	Supporting agents and limits	No everyday settings. The Knowledge base agent switch is in the Model section.
Audio tuning	How interruptions and audio buffering are handled	No everyday settings. Leave on the defaults.
Operations	Diagnostics and operational features	No everyday settings. Leave on the defaults.

The groups also contain fine-tuning settings for specialists. Leave these on their defaults unless there is a specific problem to solve, and test the draft after changing one.

Background Agents

Group	What it covers
Model Tuning	Model parameters and conversation memory

Every setting in Model Tuning is a specialist setting that ships with a working default. Leave them alone unless advised otherwise.

The Right-Hand Panel

Overview

The Overview tab keeps track of what the agent needs and what it looks like now.

• The checklist, headed Before it can be published for a draft or Before you publish for a published agent. It shows Ready to publish. when everything is done, or how many things are left. Each item marked Needed opens the section that fixes it. The items are Instructions, any other required setting, and No configuration issues.
• Summary: the type, voice, phone number, tool count and when the draft was last saved.
• What a caller hears (Frontline): the greeting as a caller would hear it, or "No greeting yet".
• From IQ: a tip when IQ spots something worth changing, with Fix with IQ or Edit the greeting.

Ask IQ

The Ask IQ tab is a chat with IQ about this draft. Type a request in Ask IQ to change something, such as "Make it ask for the pet's name before booking", and IQ edits the draft. Changed sections are highlighted, and IQ's reply lists what it updated.

Quick actions under the chat offer common requests, including any fixes the editor has found, plus Make it sound warmer and Tighten the instructions.

IQ's changes are ordinary draft edits. Review them, test the draft, and publish when happy.

Header Actions

What the header offers depends on whether the agent has been published.

A draft:

• Test opens the test panel beside the editor. See Playground.
• Publish opens the publish checklist and Hold to Publish. It is unavailable until the checklist is complete, and hovering over it lists what is left under "Before it can be published:".

A published agent:

• Discard changes throws the draft away and puts every setting back to the live version.
• Test draft tests the draft without affecting callers.
• Publish reviews the changes and publishes them as a new version. It is unavailable when there is nothing to publish.

See Publishing and Versions.

When Someone Else Changes the Draft

A draft is shared. If someone else saves it while you are editing, or an AI app changes it, the header shows Changed elsewhere and a notice reads "Someone else changed this draft". Select Reload to pick up their version. Anything changed since your last save is replaced.

Load Problems

• "This agent doesn't exist, or it was deleted." The agent has been removed. Select Back to agents.
• "Couldn't load this agent". Check the connection and select Try again.

What Happens Next

• Test the draft before publishing
• Publish it to make the changes live
• Give it a phone number if it is a Frontline agent