Studio
Studio is where you build and run agents — autonomous AI workers that do recurring work for you, such as monitoring a source, summarizing activity, drafting content, or syncing data across your connected tools. Studio is the home screen of CatalEx: when you sign in, you land here.
An agent has its own instructions, a set of tools it can use, success metrics (KPIs), an optional set of run schedules, and a memory that grows as it works. You can chat with an agent to test it, run it on demand, or let it run automatically on a schedule.
The Studio home page
Your agents appear as a grid of cards. Across the top you have:
- Search agents… — filter by name, description, or tag.
- Sort — Most recent, Most run, or Alphabetical.
- New agent — start building (disabled with Agent quota reached if you are at your limit).
- Tag filters — pills for Design, Engineering, Ops, Sales, Marketing, Research, HR, Product, Finance, Personal. Select one or more to narrow the grid.
If you have no agents yet, the page invites you to Build your first agent with a prompt box and a row of starter templates.
The agent card
Each card shows the agent's avatar, name, and description, plus a quick-glance status row:
- A status dot and label — Active or Paused.
- The version (e.g. v1) and run count (e.g. 12 runs).
- N scheduled when the agent has recurring schedules.
- The time of the last run and whether it succeeded.
From the card you can Run now (or Resume if paused), open the agent's tasks, jump straight to its tools, or delete it. Clicking the card opens the agent's full detail view.
Creating an agent
Click New agent. You can start in two ways:
- Describe it in plain English. Type what you want — for example, "Track competitor pricing pages and alert me when anything changes." This opens a short conversation where an assistant interviews you to understand the job.
- Start from a template. Pick a ready-made blueprint such as Product Manager, Account Strategist, Code Reviewer, Feedback Synthesizer, or Content Creator, or browse the full catalog by category.
The build conversation
The assistant asks questions to refine the agent's purpose, the tools it needs, and how success should be measured. Answer in your own words. Once you have exchanged enough detail, the Create Agent button becomes available.
When you click it, CatalEx synthesizes a proposed agent — Analyzing conversation → Discovering tools → Crafting instructions → Proposing KPIs — and hands you a review screen.
Review and create
On the review screen, everything is editable before the agent is created:
| Section | What you set |
|---|---|
| Name | The agent's name (click to rename). |
| Tags | The domains the agent belongs to. |
| Description | A short summary of what it does. |
| Instructions | The full operating instructions, in Markdown. |
| Tools | The integrations the agent may use. Add or remove any. |
| KPIs | The success metrics it is judged against (up to 8). |
Click Create Agent to finish. The new agent appears on your Studio home page.
You don't have to get everything perfect at creation. Instructions, tools, KPIs, and memory can all be edited later from the agent's detail view.
Working with an agent
Opening an agent reveals a detail panel with tabs. The header always shows the agent's name, status, and a Run now button; owners also see Share and a delete control.
Chat
Chat is the default tab and the best way to test an agent. Type a message, and the agent responds — streaming its reasoning, calling tools, and asking for your approval when it wants to take a sensitive action. Use the + button to start a new conversation, and attach files (images, PDFs, spreadsheets, and more) when needed.
If the agent proposes an action that requires approval, you can Approve, Reject, or tell it to do something else in your own words.
Overview
The agent's core Instructions (editable Markdown) and its Domains (tags). This is where you refine what the agent knows how to do.
Memory
What the agent has learned and remembers across conversations. You can add a memory, edit one, or clear them all. Memories are short — a sentence each — and the agent picks them up as it works.
Tools
Manage which integrations the agent can use. Your connected tools appear under Agent's tools; browse Other Available Tools to add more. For each tool you can choose which connected accounts the agent may act through, and you can build a custom script tool in Python for bespoke logic. See Tools for how connecting and guardrails work.
Runs
The history of the agent's automated runs (as opposed to chats). Each row shows the run's title, type, status, and when it was last updated. Click any run to read its full transcript. This tab is also where you manage schedules (below).
Impact
Measures the agent against its KPIs. After each interaction, CatalEx scores the agent (0–100) on each KPI and records what worked and what needs improvement. The tab shows current scores, trends, and sparklines over your chosen time window, and lets you add or remove KPIs. Pausing measurement here also pauses evolution.
Evolution
This is where the agent improves itself. Based on its KPI observations, the agent proposes changes to its instructions, memory, and tools. You review each proposal — Approve, Edit, Compare (a side-by-side diff), or Reject — then commit the approved changes as a new version. Every version is kept, so you can compare versions or roll back at any time. Evolution requires impact measurement to be turned on.
Scheduling recurring runs
Agents can run automatically on a recurring basis. Schedules are managed from the Runs tab — click Schedules (the button reads Create schedule when you have none, or Schedules (N) once you do).
An agent can have any number of schedules. To add one, click Add schedule and choose:
| Field | Options |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Daily, Hourly, or Weekly |
| Time | The local time of day (Daily and Weekly) |
| Every | The interval — every 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 12 hours (Hourly) |
| Days | One or more weekdays (Weekly) |
| Prompt | (optional) what the agent should do on each run |
The prompt is what makes schedules powerful: each schedule can carry its own instructions, so one agent can have several schedules that each kick off a different recurring job (for example, a morning digest and a Friday report). Leave it blank to run the agent with its default instructions.
Each saved schedule shows its cadence in plain English (e.g. "At 09:00 AM, every day") in your local timezone. Use Run now on a schedule to fire it once immediately, or the trash icon to delete it.
Schedules can't be edited or paused individually — to change one, delete it and create a new one. Times you enter and see are always in your local timezone.
When a schedule fires, the run appears in the Runs list just like any other run, where you can open it and read what the agent did.
Sharing an agent
Owners can Share an agent, which sends a copy to a teammate's workspace. The recipient gets their own independent copy to run and edit.
FAQ
What's the difference between chatting with an agent and running it? Chat is an interactive conversation you drive in real time — ideal for testing. A run is the agent working on its own, either because you clicked Run now or because a schedule fired. Runs appear in the Runs tab.
Do I need to be technical to build an agent? No. You describe what you want in plain English and review the result. The only technical surface is the optional custom script tool, which is for advanced users.
Why is an agent asking me to approve an action? Sensitive tool actions require approval by default (a "guardrail"). You can change which actions run automatically — see Tools.
What does "Evolution" actually change? With your approval, it updates the agent's instructions, memory, and tool set to improve its KPI scores — then saves the result as a new version you can roll back.
Can I pause an agent without deleting it? Yes. Pausing an agent stops its scheduled runs while preserving everything. Resume it whenever you like.