Key concepts

A short, plain-language vocabulary for the rest of the documentation. For what you can do with each, see Features; for full definitions of all terms, see the Glossary.

Agent

A reusable configuration — a role. An agent has instructions (a prompt), a default model, and a set of tools it is allowed to use. The same agent can be reused across many conversations, and agents can be shared with other people.

Tool

A capability an agent can call to do something concrete: search the web (web_search), read your documents (retriever_search), query a spreadsheet (spreadsheet_query_sql), run code (code_interpreter), or generate an image (generate_image). An agent only uses the tools it has been granted; new tools can also be added through connectors. The full list is in Features.

Skill (coming)

A packaged set of instructions that teaches an agent how to carry out a specific task in a repeatable way, loaded only when it's needed. The distinction is simple: a tool is what an agent can do; a skill is how to do a particular task well. Defining your own skills is on the Roadmap.

Session and memory

A session is a conversation between a person and an agent. Kiwi keeps the conversation history, so the agent retains context across turns and a session can be resumed later. Each session can have its own attached documents.

How a turn works

When you send a message, the agent reasons about it, acts by calling a tool if one is needed, observes the result, and repeats until it can answer — a pattern known as ReAct (reasoning and acting). The response is streamed as it is produced. Each request runs a single agent today; see What is Kiwi for how multiple agents are coordinated.