wabot-agents

name

wabot-agents

description

Use when building dev-facing agents, asking an LLM for a typed/deterministic answer or yes/no, giving orders, or letting a mindset delegate to an agent — either autonomously via @mindset({ agents }) or from a tool — with controlled context and tool access. Covers @agent (incl. description), IAgent, AgentFactory, AgentSession (ask / confirm / order), typed structured output, AgentReply (answer / question / stopped), context attachments (attachChat / attachMessage — e.g. "should the bot respond?"), the shared @tools decorator, tool gating (allowTools / denyTools / exposeToMindsets / budget), and testing agents with createAgentHarness.

Agents & shared tools

Two ways to drive an LLM in Wabot:

• Mindset (wabot-mindset) — an end-user-facing chatbot persona with chat memory. The user talks to it.
• Agent — a dev-facing primitive you drive from code: give it context, ask typed questions, give orders. No persisted chat memory; the transcript lives only in the session.

Both consume the same tools.

Tools are shared — @tools

A tool class is a class decorated with @tools(); every method decorated with @description(...) becomes an LLM-callable function (at most one validated request-class parameter — see wabot-validation). The exact mechanics are documented in wabot-mindset under "tool functions".

import { description, isNumber, tools } from '@wabot-dev/framework'

export class AccountRef {
  @isNumber()
  @description('The account id to look up')
  id!: number
}

@tools()
export class AccountTools {
  constructor(private accounts: AccountRepository) {}

  @description('Return the current balance of an account')
  async getBalance(req: AccountRef) {
    return this.accounts.balance(req.id)
  }
}

@mindsetModule is now a deprecated alias of @tools — existing modules keep working. @tools({ language?, exposeToMindsets? }): exposeToMindsets: false marks the class agent-only so a mindset can never reach it through delegation (see gating below).

The same @tools class can be listed by both a mindset (@mindset({ modules: [...] })) and an agent (@agent({ tools: [...] })).

Define an agent — @agent

import { agent, type IAgent, type IMindsetModels } from '@wabot-dev/framework'

@agent({ tools: [AccountTools] })
export class SupportAgent implements IAgent {
  async instructions(): Promise<string> {
    return 'You are a support back-office agent. Be precise and terse.'
  }
  async models(): Promise<IMindsetModels> {
    return { llm: [{ provider: 'openrouter', model: 'google/gemini-3-flash-preview' }] }
  }
}

IAgent has exactly instructions() and models(). Implement the interface — do not extends Agent (Agent is a throw-everything DI token, like Mindset). models() reuses IMindsetModels / the model kinds from wabot-mindset (agents use the llm kind). @agent() applies @injectable() for you — do not stack @singleton(). @agent({ tools?, description? }): description is the short blurb shown to a mindset's model when the agent is exposed via @mindset({ agents }) (see below).

Use an agent — AgentFactory + AgentSession

Inject AgentFactory anywhere (REST/socket/cron handler, a @tools method, a service). It needs a registered chat adapter, which the project runner configures automatically from provider API-key env vars.

import { AgentFactory } from '@wabot-dev/framework'

class Triage {
  @isIn(['low', 'high'])
  @description('Case severity')
  severity!: string
}

@restController('/support')
export class SupportController {
  constructor(private agents: AgentFactory) {}

  @onPost('/triage')
  async triage() {
    const session = this.agents.for(SupportAgent).session('Working on ticket 42.')

    // typed, validated answer
    const t = await session.ask('How severe is account 42 right now?', Triage)
    t.severity // 'low' | 'high'

    // easy yes/no
    const overdue = await session.confirm('Is account 42 overdue?')

    // order: may return a typed result, a question back, or a budget stop
    const reply = await session.order('Escalate the ticket if overdue.', Triage)
    if (reply.type === 'answer') return reply.value
    if (reply.type === 'question') return { needsInput: reply.text }
    return { stopped: reply.reason } // 'budget' | 'maxSteps'
  }
}

The session is a stateful, in-memory conversation: each ask / confirm / order sees the previous turns. It is never written to a ChatMemory.

Structured / deterministic output

ask<T>(question, ResponseClass) returns a validated instance of ResponseClass — the same validated request-class pattern used for tool args (@description + validators, see wabot-validation). Under the hood the agent must fill a synthetic final-answer tool built from your schema, so the result always matches the type. confirm(question) is the boolean shortcut.

order<T>(command, schema?) returns the full AgentReply<T> union:

reply.type	Meaning
answer	reply.value is the result (T when a schema was given, else the final text).
question	The agent replied with prose instead of the structured answer — e.g. it needs clarification. reply.text holds it.
stopped	Hit a limit before finishing. reply.reason is 'budget' or 'maxSteps'.

ask and confirm are happy-path sugar: they return the value directly and throw AgentPausedError if the reply was question or stopped. Use order when you want to branch on those cases.

Context attachments — "should the bot respond?"

Attach conversations/data as read-only material the agent reasons about (never merged into its own turns):

const shouldRespond = await this.agents.for(GateAgent).session()
  .attachChat(memory, { lastItems: 20 })   // a ChatMemory (fetched lazily) or an IChatItem[]
  .attachMessage(incoming)                 // the current message under evaluation
  .confirm('Should the bot respond to the latest message? ' +
           'Answer false if it is spam, already handled, or not addressed to the bot.')

attach(text) / attachChat(source, { lastItems? }) / attachMessage(msg) all return the session for chaining.

Mindset → agent delegation (controlled context)

There are two ways a mindset reaches an agent:

1. Autonomously — declare the agent on @mindset({ agents }) and the mindset's model calls it itself (see below). Best when the model should decide when to consult the agent.
2. From a tool — call AgentFactory inside one of the mindset's @tools methods (shown after). Best when your code decides, or you need a typed ask<T> result.

Autonomous — @mindset({ agents })

Each agent binding becomes a callable tool (ask_<agent_slug>) with a single free-text input. Calling it runs a fresh, isolated, budget-capped session (.order(input)) and returns the agent's reply text to the chat loop. Give the agent a description so the mindset's model knows when to use it:

@agent({ tools: [KbSearchTools, AdminTools], description: 'Answers hard product questions from the KB.' })
export class SpecialistAgent implements IAgent { /* instructions() / models() */ }

@mindset({
  modules: [FaqTools],
  agents: [
    { agent: SpecialistAgent, allow: [KbSearchTools], budget: { maxTokens: 8000 } },
  ],
})
export class SupportMindset implements IMindset { /* … */ }

allow/deny on the binding are exactly the tool gating below; forMindset is always applied. The agent gets only the model's task text (no chat history), capped by budget (default maxTokens: 4000, maxSteps: 8). A stopped turn comes back as text (never throws into the loop). This is the declarative equivalent of the manual delegation below — use it when the model, not your code, should decide to delegate.

From a tool — AgentFactory

Build the agent through the fluent builder to get four guarantees:

@tools()
export class EscalationTools {
  constructor(private agents: AgentFactory) {}

  @description('Escalate a hard question to the specialist agent')
  async escalate(req: EscalateRequest) {
    const session = this.agents.for(SpecialistAgent)
      .forMindset()                    // enforce exposeToMindsets:false hiding
      .allowTools([KbSearchTools])     // whitelist — everything else is unreachable
      .withBudget({ maxTokens: 8000 }) // token / step cap
      .session(req.curatedContext)     // input isolation: only what you pass in
    const answer = await session.ask(req.question, AnswerSchema)
    return answer                      // memory hygiene: only this returns to the chat
  }
}

• Input isolation — the agent sees only the context/attachments you pass; the end-user chat history is never auto-forwarded.
• Memory hygiene — the agent's own tool calls/reasoning stay in its ephemeral session; only your return value reaches ChatMemory.
• Token budget — withBudget({ maxTokens?, maxSteps? }); exceeding it yields a stopped reply, it never throws into the mindset loop.
• Tool gating — allowTools / denyTools (by tool class or function name) + forMindset() (honors exposeToMindsets: false). A blocked call returns TOOL_NOT_ALLOWED to the model; the tool is unreachable.

The builder also has .denyTools([...]) and .withContext(str) (same as passing context to .session()).

Rules

• Agents are for code-driven flows; use a mindset for user-facing chat. Don't build a chatbot as an agent.
• ask / confirm throw AgentPausedError on a non-answer — wrap them, or use order and branch on reply.type.
• A @tools class shared with a mindset should mark privileged methods with @tools({ exposeToMindsets: false }), and delegations should still allowTools an explicit whitelist. Defense in depth.
• Response schemas follow the tool-arg rules: one class, every field has a type validator AND @description (see wabot-validation).
• @agent() already injects; never add @singleton().

Testing

Use createAgentHarness from @wabot-dev/framework/testing — a thin wrapper over the real AgentFactory path (same code as production), driven by the scripted MockChatAdapter.

import { createAgentHarness, MockChatAdapter } from '@wabot-dev/framework/testing'
import { ANSWER_TOOL_NAME } from '@wabot-dev/framework'

const harness = createAgentHarness({
  agent: TriageAgent,
  register: [[Db, fakeDb]], // wire the agent's @tools dependencies
})

// harness.for() is the real builder: forMindset/allowTools/denyTools/withBudget/withContext
harness.adapter.callTool(ANSWER_TOOL_NAME, { urgent: true })
const result = await harness.for().forMindset().allowTools([KbTools]).session().ask('…', TriageResult)

// or the shortcut for a default session:
harness.adapter.reply('done')
const reply = await harness.session('optional context').order('do the thing')

// assert on what the model was sent:
assert.deepEqual(harness.adapter.lastRequest!.tools.map((t) => t.name), ['kbSearch'])

• createAgentHarness({ agent, adapter?, register?, authInfo? }) mirrors createChatBotHarness. register wires the agent's tool dependencies; authInfo assigns the scoped Auth.
• harness.for() → the production AgentBuilder; harness.session(context?) is for().session(context). Then call ask/confirm/order/attach* on the session.
• Script turns with MockChatAdapter: reply(text), callTool(name, args), enqueue(...). For ask/confirm, queue an answer-tool turn: adapter.callTool(ANSWER_TOOL_NAME, { ... }). Remember a tool-call turn must be followed by another scripted turn. See wabot-testing.