Quickstart
The fastest way to build your first agent is to describe it. Anter's Meta-Agent interviews you, designs the agent, and hands you a reviewable spec — ready to create in one click. This guide walks you through that in about five minutes.
Before you start
You need an Anter account and a workspace. If you haven't set one up yet, see the Admin overview.
What you'll build
A customer support assistant with two specialized sub-agents:
| Sub-agent | What it does |
|---|---|
| Triage | Reads the incoming message and decides which specialist should handle it |
| Support specialist | Handles general questions directly — no external tools needed |
The root agent receives every conversation and hands off to the right specialist automatically. By the end of this guide, you'll have a working multi-agent system you can chat with immediately.
Build it with the Meta-Agent
Open the chat page
Sign in to Anter and head to the chat page at agents.anter.ai. If you don't have an agent yet, you'll land on an empty state with a Build a new agent button. Click it — this puts the Meta-Agent in charge of the conversation.
You can also activate the Meta-Agent at any time by typing /meta in the chat composer. A banner at the bottom of the composer confirms it's active.
Describe the agent you want
You don't need a detailed spec — a sentence is enough. Try something like:
"A customer support assistant that triages incoming queries. One sub-agent handles the routing, another handles general questions. No external tools needed."
The Meta-Agent's intake stage may ask a few short clarifying questions — your product's name, tone, who the users are. Answer naturally. It uses your answers to design the right agent structure.
Let the Meta-Agent design it
Once it has enough context, the Meta-Agent hands off internally — from intake to architect to spec assembly. You'll see the conversation progress on its own. When the spec is ready, the Meta-Agent summarizes what it designed and an artifact pill appears in the chat labeled "View document."
Review the agent spec
Click the artifact pill. An artifact panel slides open from the right side of the screen. Inside you'll see:
- The name and description of the root agent
- Each sub-agent and its role
- The instructions (system prompt) written for each one
- A summary of how handoffs between sub-agents work
Take a moment to read through it. If anything looks off, you can describe the change in the chat — the Meta-Agent will revise the spec.
Create the agent
When the spec looks right, select the project you want to create the agent under, then click Create agent. Anter sends the spec to the backend, validates it, and provisions the root agent along with all its sub-agents in one step.
A confirmation appears: 🎉 Agent created with the agent's name.
Open it in chat
Click Open in chat →. The Meta-Agent exits and the chat switches to your new agent. Send it a message — you're talking to a live, multi-agent system you built in a single conversation.
What just happened
The Meta-Agent ran four internal sub-agents on your behalf: Intake (gathered your requirements), Architect (designed the agent graph), Skill-author (wrote the specialist instructions), and Materializer (assembled and emitted the spec). The artifact pill was the output of that last stage — a validated spec the backend used to create every agent and sub-agent in one API call.
What's next
Your agent is live and ready to use. From here you can:
- Open Manage agents to edit the system prompt, model, or permission settings on any sub-agent
- Add tools — connect a webhook or MCP server so sub-agents can look up data or take actions
- Add skills — domain instruction bundles that load on-demand to extend what an agent knows
- Set up the API or a schedule to run your agent outside of the chat interface