What makes a chat agent different?
A chatbot primarily answers questions. A chat agent can also request actions: search a knowledge base, look up an order, draft a change or ask an external tool to perform a task. The language model decides what it wants to do; the application decides what it is allowed to do.
A reliable agent is usually a bounded loop:
- Receive the user's objective and relevant context.
- Ask the model to answer or propose a specific tool call.
- Validate the tool name, arguments, user permission and budget.
- Execute the approved action with a trusted application service.
- Return the tool result to the model and stop when the goal is complete.
Essential components
Conversation state stores useful recent turns without repeatedly replaying irrelevant history.
Tool registry defines allowed actions and parameters in a machine-readable form.
Policy layer controls permissions, financial or destructive actions, data handling, and approval requirements.
Observability records timing, failures, prompts or metadata according to your privacy policy.
Evaluation tests task completion, factual accuracy and behavior when a tool returns malformed or hostile data.
Keep actions behind a secure boundary
Never execute a model-supplied command without validating it. Treat retrieved pages and tool outputs as untrusted input, not new instructions. Use allowlisted tools, restricted credentials and human confirmation for high-impact operations.
Use the agent tools guide for the control flow and building a chat assistant for an end-to-end checklist.
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