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Retool Agents quickstart

A hands-on tutorial for creating an agent from scratch.

Retool Agents enable you to create AI agents that can think, reason, and call tools independently. They take actions and complete or delegate tasks that you assign them during configuration.

This quickstart walks you through building a research assistant that searches the web, retrieves webpage content, and cites sources in its responses.

Getting started​

Navigate to login.retool.com to log in or create a new organization.

If you're joining an existing organization, confirm with an admin that you are in a group with Edit access to agents, and Use access to an AI resource.

Create a new agent​

To create a new agent, select the Agents tab in the top navigation bar.

  1. From the All agents page, click the + Agent button.
  2. Select Start from scratch.
  3. In the Agent name field, enter Research Assistant.
  4. In the Description field, enter Use web search tools to help me with research and click Create.

Configure your agent​

Your agent opens in the Configuration tab. This is where you configure your agent's instructions, the AI provider and model it uses, and is where you input the Instructions your agent uses to help the AI Model you select think and reason as it calls tools.

Update the instructions​

Replace the default text in the Instructions field with the following:

You are a research assistant chatting with {{ current_user.firstName }} {{ current_user.lastName }}. Today's date is {{ new Date() }}.

Respond to the user's queries in a concise manner. Always provide the source for any claims that you make.

Select an AI provider​

In the AI Resource setting, select the AI provider that you want to use. Use that provider's default model, or choose another.

note

You can interact with AI models using either a Retool-managed key or your own credentials. This quickstart uses a Retool-managed key.

Connect tools to your agent​

Next, connect your first tools, which will perform web search and extraction.

  1. Click + Add new tool.
  2. Select Search Web and Get Webpage Content.
  3. Click Add 2 tools at the top of the page.
  4. On the Search Web tool, click Select Resource. Click on the dropdown, and click + Add new resource.
  5. In the modal that opens, name your resource Web Research. Click Create resource.
  6. Enable the Apply to all tools that need this type of resource setting, and click Save.

For more information about tools, refer to the Tools conceptual guide.

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You can also chat with the Config Assistant, which helps you configure your agent by suggesting tools and automatically populating your configuration with them if you accept the suggestion. Depending on the AI model used, you may have varying results, and automatically generated tools may need to be refined.

5. Test your agent​

To test your agent and ensure it's working as intended, chat with it.

  1. Switch to the Chats tab.
  2. Message your agent with the following, changing the date as needed. Ensure you include the correct year. 
    Can you help me find the latest tax code updates in Massachusetts?
  3. Your agent will display thoughts and provide Tool chips in the chat thread and in the side bar as it runs so you can see which tools were called, the parameters that used, and the result. You can toggle Hide or Show thinking for the tool chips in the side bar, depending on your preference.
  4. Your agent responds. Check that it cited a source for each claim.
  5. To make your thread public and share it with another user, click Share thread and then click Publish link.

You can continue chatting with your agent, and check the Logs to test any modifications you make to the tools or agent configuration, or you can revert to previous deployed versions from the version history displayed next to the name of your agent.

Deploy your agent​

Now that you've configured your first agent, it's time to deploy it. Deploying an agent makes it available to other users in your organization.

  1. Click the Deploy button in the top right corner of the screen.
  2. Select the Major tab, and add a Description.
  3. Click Deploy.

Wrap up​

At this point, you should be able to configure an agent, add prebuilt tools, and chat with an agent to test how it performs, and deploy the agent.

To continue learning about agents, explore the following resources: