The Triage Agent is designed to work within boundaries defined by your clinic.

You control when the agent operates and provide the instructions it should follow.

Open the Triage Agent settings from the agent workspace.

Agent status

The first setting controls whether the Triage Agent is active.

You can switch the agent on or off at any time.

On
The agent can handle incoming conversations according to your clinic's configuration.

Off
The agent will not actively handle conversations through the agent workflow.

After-hours engagement

After-hours engagement allows the agent to step in when your clinic is outside its normal operating hours.

When enabled, the Triage Agent can automatically become active after hours, even if the main agent toggle is switched off.

This means your clinic can choose to have the agent available when your team is unavailable, without having to manually turn it on every evening.

For example:

Clinic closed → Pet parent messages WhatsApp → After-hours engagement activates → Agent handles the conversation

This is particularly useful for handling appointment requests, basic questions, and initial case information outside normal clinic hours.

Agent instructions

Agent Instructions are the clinic's own guidance for how the Triage Agent should operate.

This is where your team can provide relevant information and instructions that help the agent represent your clinic correctly.

You can include information such as:

• Clinic location

• Opening hours

• Services

• Booking information

• Contact details

• General clinic policies

• How you want certain types of enquiries handled

• Other operational instructions relevant to your clinic

Think of Agent Instructions as the clinic's operating guide for the agent.

You tell it how your clinic works. The agent uses that information when communicating with pet families.

Guardrails

Agent Instructions do not give the agent unrestricted access to your clinic's information.

smollOS applies system-level guardrails around what the agent can access, say, and do.

These guardrails are designed to prevent the agent from exposing sensitive information, making inappropriate disclosures, or operating outside the boundaries of the platform.

Your instructions work within these guardrails.

In other words, you can tell the agent how to represent your clinic, but you cannot instruct it to bypass the platform's safety, privacy, or access controls.

Keeping the agent useful

Good Agent Instructions are specific and practical.

Instead of:

"Tell customers everything they need to know."

Use something closer to:

"Our clinic is open Monday to Saturday from 9am to 7pm. We offer consultations, surgery, vaccinations and telemedicine. For urgent cases outside opening hours, collect the pet's symptoms and contact information and follow the triage workflow."

The more useful context you provide, the better the agent can work within the boundaries of your clinic.