temporal-ai-agent/adding-goals-and-tools.md

Customizing the Agent

The agent is set up to allow for multiple goals and to switch back to choosing a new goal at the end of every successful goal. A goal is made up of a list of tools that the agent will guide the user through.

It may be helpful to review the architecture for a guide and definition of goals, tools, etc.

Adding a New Goal Category

Goal Categories lets you pick which groups of goals to show. Set via an .env setting, GOAL_CATEGORIES.

1. Pick a unique one that has some business meaning
2. Use it in your .env file
3. Add to .env.example
4. Use it in your Goal definition, see below.

Adding a Goal

1. Open /tools/goal_registry.py - this file contains descriptions of goals and the tools used to achieve them
2. Pick a name for your goal! (such as "goal_hr_schedule_pto")
3. Fill out the required elements:

• id: needs to be the same as the name
• agent_name: user-facing name for the agent/chatbot
• category_tag: category for the goal
• agent_friendly_description: user-facing description of what the agent/chatbot does
• tools: the list of tools the goal will walk the user through. These will be defined in the tools/tool_registry.py and should be defined in list form as tool_registry.[name of tool]
• Important! The last tool listed must be list_agents_tool. This allows the chatbot to guide the user back to choosing from the list of available goals once a goal is complete.
  Example:

tools=[
    tool_registry.current_pto_tool,
    tool_registry.future_pto_calc_tool,
    tool_registry.book_pto_tool,
    tool_registry.list_agents_tool,
]

• description: LLM-facing description of the goal that lists the tools by name and purpose.
• starter-prompt: LLM-facing first prompt given to begin the scenario. This field can contain instructions that are different from other goals, like "begin by providing the output of the first tool" rather than waiting on user confirmation. (See goal_choose_agent_type for an example.)
• example_conversation_history: LLM-facing sample conversation/interaction regarding the goal. See the existing goals for how to structure this.

4. Add your new goal to the goal_list at the bottom using goal_list.append(your_super_sweet_new_goal)

Adding Tools

Notes

Tools can be optional - you can indicate this in the tool listing of goal description (see above section re: goal registry) by adding something like, "This step is optional and can be skipped by moving to the next tool." Here is an example from an older iteration of the goal_hr_schedule_pto goal, when it was going to have an optional step to check for existing calendar conflicts:

description="Help the user gather args for these tools in order: "
    "1. CurrentPTO: Tell the user how much PTO they currently have "
    "2. FuturePTO: Tell the user how much PTO they will have as of the prospective date "
    "3. CalendarConflict: Tell the user what conflicts if any exist around the prospective date on a list of calendars. This step is optional and can be skipped by moving to the next tool. "
    "4. BookPTO: Book PTO "

Add to Tool Registry

1. Open /tools/tool_registry.py - this file contains mapping of tool names to tool definitions (so the AI understands how to use them)
2. Define the tool

• name: name of the tool - this is the name as defined in the goal description list of tools. The name should be (sort of) the same as the tool name given in the goal description. So, if the description lists "CurrentPTO" as a tool, the name here should be current_pto_tool.
• description: LLM-facing description of tool
• arguments: These are the input arguments to the tool. Each input argument should be defined as a ToolArgument. Tools don't have to have arguments but the arguments list has to be declared. If the tool you're creating doesn't have inputs, define arguments as arguments=[]

Create Each Tool

• The tools themselves are defined in their own files in /tools - you can add a subfolder to organize them, see the hr tools for an example.
• The file name and function name will be the same as each other and should also be the same as the name of the tool, without "tool" - so current_pto_tool would be current_pto.py with a function named current_pto within it.
• The function should have args: dict as the input and also return a dict
• The return dict should match the output format you specified in the goal's example_conversation_history
• tools are where the user input+model output becomes deterministic. Add validation here to make sure what the system is doing is valid and acceptable

Add to tools/__init__.py and the tool get_handler()

• In tools/init.py, add an import statement for each new tool as well as an applicable return statement in get_handler. The tool name here should match the tool name as described in the goal's description field. Example:

if tool_name == "CurrentPTO":
    return current_pto

Existing Travel Goals

The agent can be configured to pursue different goals using the AGENT_GOAL environment variable in your .env file.

Goal: Find an event in Australia / New Zealand, book flights to it and invoice the user for the cost

• AGENT_GOAL=goal_event_flight_invoice (default) - Helps users find events, book flights, and arrange train travel with invoice generation
  • This is the scenario in the original video

Goal: Find a Premier League match, book train tickets to it and invoice the user for the cost

• AGENT_GOAL=goal_match_train_invoice - Focuses on Premier League match attendance with train booking and invoice generation
  • This is a new goal that is part of the Replay 2025 talk.

If not specified, the agent defaults to all goals. Each goal, including these, comes with its own set of tools and conversation flows designed for specific use cases. You can examine tools/goal_registry.py to see the detailed configuration of each goal.

See the next section for tool configuration for these goals.

Configuring Travel Goal Tools

Agent Goal: goal_event_flight_invoice (default)

• The agent uses a mock function to search for events. This has zero configuration.
• By default the agent uses a mock function to search for flights.
  • If you want to use the real flights API, go to tools/search_flights.py and replace the search_flights function with search_flights_real_api that exists in the same file.
  • It's free to sign up at RapidAPI
  • This api might be slow to respond, so you may want to increase the start to close timeout, TOOL_ACTIVITY_START_TO_CLOSE_TIMEOUT in workflows/workflow_helpers.py
• Requires a Stripe key for the create_invoice tool. Set this in the STRIPE_API_KEY environment variable in .env
  • It's free to sign up and get a key at Stripe
  • If you're lazy go to tools/create_invoice.py and replace the create_invoice function with the mock create_invoice_example that exists in the same file.

Agent Goal: goal_match_train_invoice

• Finding a match requires a key from Football Data. Sign up for a free account, then see the 'My Account' page to get your API token. Set FOOTBALL_DATA_API_KEY to this value.
  • If you're lazy go to tools/search_fixtures.py and replace the search_fixtures function with the mock search_fixtures_example that exists in the same file.
• We use a mock function to search for trains. Start the train API server to use the real API: python thirdparty/train_api.py
• • The train activity is 'enterprise' so it's written in C# and requires a .NET runtime. See the .NET backend section for details on running it.
• Requires a Stripe key for the create_invoice tool. Set this in the STRIPE_API_KEY environment variable in .env
  • It's free to sign up and get a key at Stripe
  • If you're lazy go to tools/create_invoice.py and replace the create_invoice function with the mock create_invoice_example that exists in the same file.