Agent knowledge
The agent's Knowledge tab — retrieval mode, team and organization document scopes, and agent-only uploads, and how they differ from tools and attachments.
3 min read
Knowledge is what an agent can retrieve and cite at reply time. Without it the agent is generic; with it the agent answers from your documents and cites where the answer came from. The agent's Knowledge tab controls two things: how the agent retrieves (the retrieval mode) and what is in scope (which documents).
Pick a retrieval mode
Four modes trade cost against coverage. Tool lets the agent search on demand — retrieval runs only when the model decides it needs it. Context injects relevant knowledge into every response, whether the model would have asked or not. Both combines them, and Off disables the knowledge base for this agent entirely. Start with Tool; move to Context when the agent's whole job is answering from the documents and you want retrieval on every reply.
Scope the documents
The knowledge base searches documents uploaded to your organization — the same library you manage under Documents. Two switches set the scope: Include team documents covers the agent's assigned team, and Include organization documents covers documents not assigned to any team. The tab lists what each scope currently contains, with the index state per document — only Indexed documents are retrievable.
Give the agent its own documents
Agent documents are uploads only this agent can access — click Upload documents and the files join this agent's retrieval scope without entering the shared library. Reach for them when the source belongs to the agent's job rather than the org: a triage playbook, a product-specific FAQ.
How retrieval lands in the reply
When the agent retrieves, citations attach to the sentences they support — hovering shows the source, clicking opens it. Everything retrievable competes for relevance on every question, so keep the scope tight: a broad scope makes retrieval noisier, not smarter.
When to reach for it
Structured records and live sources are tools, not knowledge — and files for a single conversation are attachments. The boundaries:
| Use… | When the agent needs… |
|---|---|
| Knowledge (this tab) | To search and cite uploaded documents on every chat |
| Tools | Contacts, products, vendors, websites, or live systems |
| Attachments | A file that matters for one chat only |
| Project agents | Knowledge scoped to one Project |
Where this fits
Agent knowledge is the answer to "this agent should answer from these documents". The wider Knowledge section is where the sources live and get indexed; this tab wires one agent into a scope of them. For the end-to-end build — upload, scope, ask, verify the citations — walk Agent with knowledge.