# Instructions, Assets, and Sub Agents

When Aissistant responds to a user’s inquiry, it doesn’t just guess the answer — it intelligently pulls context and instructions from three main sources: **workspace instructions**, **assets**, and **sub-agents**. Each plays a unique role in shaping how Aissistant understands and replies. Let’s break down the difference.

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### **🔧 1. Workspace Instructions – The Global Rulebook**

**What they are:**\
These are the **global instructions** that guide Aissistant’s behavior across all conversations.

**How they work:**\
Workspace instructions are automatically included **every time** Aissistant generates a response. Because they apply globally, they are meant to be **brief, high-level**, and **always relevant**.

**Example:**

> “Always answer in a friendly and professional tone.”\
> “Use markdown for formatting.”

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### **📚 2. Assets – The Business Knowledge Base**

**What they are:**\
Assets are the **documents, web pages, or resources** that contain your business-specific knowledge.

**How they work:**\
Assets are stored in our system as **trunks**, which are smaller segments of the original content. For instance, if an asset is a large manual, it will be split into multiple trunks. When a user asks a question, instead of returning the whole asset, Aissistant searches through these trunks to find relevant information. If a useful trunk is found, it’s added to the response context. You can think of this as Aissistant’s built-in search engine, retrieving just the right slice of knowledge to answer the query.

**Example:**

> An FAQ page, product documentation, or internal troubleshooting guide.

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### **🤖 3. Sub Agents – The Specialized Experts**

**What they are:**\
Sub-agents are **scenario-specific configurations** that give Aissistant special instructions for certain types of requests.

**How they work:**\
If a user’s message matches a scenario defined in a sub-agent (like billing issues, shipping delays, etc.), the sub-agent's instructions are added to guide the reply.\
If the sub-agent has assets linked to it, Aissistant will also search trunks in **those** assets and include any relevant trunks — improving **accuracy** and reducing **latency**.

**Example:**

> A sub-agent called `shipping` might handle shipping questions and only search shipping policy documents.

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### 🧩 Putting It All Together

When Aissistant replies, it checks:

1. **Workspace Instructions** – Always included
2. **Sub-Agent** – If triggered, instructions are included, linked asset searched and included if relevant
3. **Asset** – Searched and included if relevant

By combining these layers, Aissistant delivers fast, relevant, and accurate responses tailored to each situation — just like a well-trained human support agent.