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Actions
Connect your agents to external tools, APIs, and other agents so they can take real actions.
Actions let your agent do more than just chat. Think of them as buttons your agent can press when the conversation calls for it — like looking up data, sending an email, submitting a form, or triggering a workflow.
How actions work
When a user interacts with your agent, the AI decides whether an action should be triggered based on the conversation context. To get reliable results, you should define when an action should be used in two places:
- Role prompt — Include instructions in your main prompt that describe when and why the agent should use the action.
- Trigger prompt — Each action has its own trigger prompt where you specify the exact conditions that should cause it to fire.
Being clear in both places helps your agent know exactly when to act and when to keep chatting.
What you can connect to
Pickaxe offers a built-in Action Library with a wide range of pre-built integrations. You can also connect an agent to other agents, allowing one agent to trigger another as part of a larger workflow.
How many actions should an agent have?
You can connect multiple actions to a single agent, but we recommend no more than four. Too many actions can make it harder for the AI to consistently choose the right one.
If your use case requires more than four actions, the best approach is to create a waterfall setup — a primary agent that routes to other agents, each with their own focused set of actions. This keeps each agent simple and reliable while still covering complex workflows.