Agent lifecycle tools
These tools cover the design loop: learning the spec format, creating a draft, revising it, and reading it back — the same lifecycle described in Flows key concepts, driven through MCP instead of the dashboard.
Discovery tools
Call these first — they cost nothing but a tool call and don't touch any of your data.
| Tool | What it returns |
|---|---|
get_agent_lifecycle_guide | A cross-tool orchestration guide: which tool to call in what order, from prerequisites through promotion |
get_spec_schema | The AgentSpec JSON Schema, plus a prose breakdown of the model (agent → sub-agents → connections → skills → tools) |
Start here
If your MCP client hasn't designed an Anter agent before, have it call get_agent_lifecycle_guide
before anything else — it's a static reference that lays out the whole sequence in one call.
Creating and revising
create_draft_agent — { projectId, spec, idempotencyKey }
Persists a new agent as a draft: a version 1 revision, not yet promoted to live. Nothing about this call goes to production traffic. Re-submitting the same idempotencyKey returns the existing draft instead of creating a duplicate — safe to retry.
update_agent_spec — { agentId, projectId, spec, idempotencyKey }
Appends a new revision to an agent's history, whether it's still a draft or already live. This never touches what's currently serving live traffic — it prepares the next version for review and testing. Like create_draft_agent, it's idempotency-key safe to retry.
Promotion is dashboard-only
There is no MCP tool that makes a draft or revision live. Once a spec looks right, promote it from the Anter dashboard (Versions → Promote). This is a deliberate boundary — it keeps "what's live" a conscious, UI-driven decision, not something a scripted MCP call can trigger silently. See Versions for the promotion model.
Reading agents back
get_agent_by_slug — { agentSlug }
Looks up an agent by its human-readable slug (the same one you set when creating it) instead of its internal id. Returns the agent's current spec — whichever revision is "current" (a pending draft revision if one exists, otherwise the active version) — ready to feed straight into update_agent_spec. A slug with no match returns { found: false } rather than an error.
get_agent_structure — { agentId }
Returns the full agent graph: the root agent, every sub-agent, and how tools and skills are wired to each — the same structure you'd see on the agent graph canvas in Flows.
A typical loop
Learn the format
Call get_agent_lifecycle_guide and get_spec_schema once to understand the AgentSpec shape
and the recommended tool sequence.
Draft the agent
Assemble a spec and call create_draft_agent. You get back an agentId you'll reuse for every
following call.
Iterate
Call update_agent_spec with the same agentId to append a revised version. Repeat as many
times as needed.
Promote
When you're satisfied, promote the version from the dashboard. This step has no MCP equivalent by design.