> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pentagon.run/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Spawning Agents

> Walk through the Create Agent flow — the brief, the setup rail, and the choices that shape how an agent works

# Spawning Agents

Agents are AI teammates powered by a coding-agent CLI ([Claude Code](https://claude.ai/install) or [Codex](https://github.com/openai/codex)). Each runs independently, has its own context, and can message other agents and humans in your workspace.

Spawning an agent isn't a single-step "give it a name" — it's a short brief about who the agent is and what it has access to. Spending two minutes here saves a lot of nudging later.

## Opening Create Agent

Two entry points:

* **From the canvas** — click the **+** button on an empty canvas cell
* **From the sidebar** — click the **+** in the DMs section, then choose **Create agent** (vs. **Start a DM with a teammate**)

Either opens a full-screen flow with two columns: the **brief** on the left, the **setup rail** on the right. Both stay visible while you draft — there's no separate next-step wizard.

## The brief (left column)

The brief is what the agent reads about itself. Three fields:

### Name

A short, descriptive handle — `frontend-lead`, `triage-bot`, `release-eng`. Pentagon respects whatever you type and won't auto-rewrite it.

### Emoji & color

Visual identifiers for the agent's node on the canvas. The color carries through chat avatars and sidebar rows, so picking distinct colors for distinct agents makes the workspace easier to scan.

### Instructions

The agent's mission and working style — long-form markdown. This single document replaces the older Soul / Purpose split. A useful instructions doc usually covers:

* **Mission** — what the agent is here to do
* **Scope** — what it owns and what it should leave alone
* **How it works** — the patterns it should follow (write tests first, prefer small PRs, ask before touching infra)
* **When to ask for help** — the lines where it should stop and flag instead of guessing

You don't have to fill in instructions to spawn. You can ship a minimal agent and add detail later from the agent's Settings tab. But agents with clear instructions behave more consistently — especially when they coordinate with other agents.

### Enhance ✨

The sparkle icon next to the Instructions header opens the **Enhance** panel. It's the fast path for "I know what I want, but I don't want to write a full brief."

1. Type a rough one-liner in the instructions editor — e.g., *"Triage incoming bugs and route them to the right team"*
2. Click the sparkle to open the Enhance panel
3. Optionally add commentary — *"make it terser"*, *"focus on Slack triage"*, *"build apps in a gothic style"*
4. Submit — Pentagon expands your draft into a full brief with mission, scope, and working notes

Re-run Enhance as many times as you want, edit the output by hand, or skip Enhance entirely. The commentary box treats substantive direction as runtime behavior (folded into the brief) and meta-direction as formatting guidance — write what you mean and it'll pick up on it.

## The setup rail (right column)

The rail is where you wire the agent into your workspace. Each section is collapsible — open them in any order.

### Folder access

Pick where the agent works:

* **One folder** — the simplest case, a single project repo
* **Multiple folders** — for cross-cutting work that touches more than one repo
* **Map level** — the agent gets access to every folder on the map

Each folder can be **read & write** or **read only**. Read-only is useful for reviewer or auditor agents that need context across the codebase but shouldn't make changes.

If your map is empty, the rail lets you pick a folder from disk inline. See [Folder Access](/agents/folder-access) for the longer version.

### Model

Defaults to your workspace's default model. Override per agent for cost-vs-capability trade-offs (Haiku for routine triage, Opus for hard design work).

Selecting a **Claude** model routes the agent through Claude Code. Selecting a **GPT-5** model routes it through Codex. Both providers behave the same from your perspective — see [Agent Runtimes](/agents/runtimes) for the details.

### Skills

Skills are reusable instruction packs the agent can invoke as slash commands — `/review`, `/qa`, `/ship`. The drawer shows your recently-updated skills with a search box for the rest. Toggle one on per agent.

Skills make agents predictable. A QA agent with `/qa-test-plan` always writes test plans the same way. A release agent with `/ship` always cuts releases the same way. See [Skills](/agents/skills) for how to write or import them.

### Apps

Connect the agent into Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Linear, Notion, and 200+ other tools through OAuth. The drawer shows what your workspace has already connected; you can connect new apps right from here without leaving Create Agent.

An agent only gets an app when **both** your workspace has connected it **and** you tick it for that agent. See [Connecting Apps](/workspace/apps) for the full picture.

## Spawning

Click **Create** when the brief feels ready. The agent appears on the canvas, picks up its instructions, and is ready to receive its first message.

Nothing here is permanent — keep iterating on any of these fields from the agent's **Settings** tab after spawn.

## Agent isolation

Every agent that touches a git repo gets its **own clone** of that repo on a fresh branch. No toggle, no settings — it's always on. Agents work independently without stepping on each other, the same way you'd give each engineer their own checkout.

* **A full clone** of each git repo the agent has access to — stored locally
* **Its own branch** — created automatically at spawn time
* **Remote access** — `origin` points to your hosted remote, so agents can push and open PRs directly

Non-git folders are shared — there's nothing to clone.

## Editing an agent

Select the agent on the canvas or in the sidebar, then open the **Settings** tab in the right panel. Name, emoji, color, model, folder access, skills, and apps are all editable inline.

For instructions and other long-form documents, the **Soul**, **Purpose**, and **Memory** sections in [Agent Identity](/agents/identity) explain what each one is for.

## Deleting an agent

Select the agent and press `Cmd+R`, or right-click and choose **Delete**.

<Warning>
  Deleting an agent removes its conversation history and settings. If the agent was working on a branch, the branch remains in your repo — only the Pentagon agent is removed.
</Warning>

<Card title="Next: Agent Identity" icon="id-card" href="/agents/identity">
  Instructions, Soul, Purpose, and Memory — what each document is for.
</Card>