Custom agents

Create custom Otto agents to accomplish specific tasks with configurable models, temperatures, MCPs, and prompts.

You can invoke a custom agent by clicking Otto at the bottom of the chat panel and choosing your named custom agent instead.

Organization

All custom agents must be located in the agents subfolder within a dedicated otto directory in your Ascend Project:

Screenshot

File tree

├── otto
│   ├── agents
│   │   ├── custom_agent.md
│   ├── mcp.yaml
│   ├── otto.yaml
│   └── rules
│       └── demo_welcome.yaml
│       └── git_commits.yaml

Agent structure

Custom agents are markdown files with YAML frontmatter that define the agent's model, settings, and tool access, plus a markdown body containing the agent's instructions. See the Custom Otto agents reference for complete configuration details.

Example

This example shows a custom agent that summarizes weekly Ascend activities and reports them to a manager via Slack:

reporter.md

---
otto:
  agent:
    name: Standup Reporter
    mcp_servers:
    - slack
    model: gpt-4o
    model_settings:
      temperature: 0.1
    tools:
      - "*"
---

# Standup Reporter

Next steps

• Configure your agents
• Set up MCP servers to extend agent capabilities