Quick Start Guide

Overview

Kognitos empowers you to write automations in plain English, turning natural-language instructions into executable workflows. This guide will walk you through core concepts, the development lifecycle, and the basics of writing an automation.

Core Concepts

Let’s kick things off with two important ideas: agents and automations.

Agents

An agent is a dedicated execution environment. Each agent comes with its own skills and settings, enabling it to operate independently. Agents are created to handle specific business tasks and can contain one or more automations to complete them.

Automations

An automation is a set of instructions that tells Kognitos what to do — process data, work with documents, send emails, call other processes, and more. Automations come in several forms:

1. Playgrounds: Early-stage workflows used to explore or test an idea.

2. Processes: Complete workflows that represent business tasks. They have two modes:

   1. Draft – A version of the process for development and testing.

   2. Published – A finalized, production-ready version of the process.

Development Lifecycle

Automations move through a lifecycle as they evolve from ideas to production-ready workflows:

Start in the Playground

Every automation begins in the Playground — your workspace for writing and testing automations.

Create a New Playground

1. From the left navigation menu, go to the Playground .

2. Click on + New Playground.

3. Write your workflow in the input area of the editor.

Writing Automations

Kognitos automations are written in English. They are composed of small, readable steps called procedures. By combining multiple procedures, you can form a complete automation workflow.

What is a Procedure?

A procedure is a single automation task. Each procedure describes a specific action and follows a defined grammatical syntax that Kognitos understands, such as extract data, create a table, or send an email. Procedures are the building blocks for Kognitos automations.

Building a Workflow

Combine procedures to create an end-to-end automation. For example, you might extract fields from a receipt, summarize them in a table, and then email the result:

upload a document where
  the file is Uber-Receipt.pdf

extract data from the document where
  the first field is "date"
  the first field's format is "text"

  the second field is "location"
  the second field's format is "text"

  the third field is "total"
  the third field's format is "text"

create a table where
  the column names are "Date", "Start Location", "Total Cost"
  the row count is 1

insert a row in the table where
  the Date is the data's date
  the Start Location is the data's location
  the Total Cost is the data's total

send an email where
  the recipient is [email protected]
  the subject "Rideshare Receipt Summary"
  the message is the table

Auto-Write (HAL)

With Kognitos’ Hyperautomation Lifecycle (HAL), you can describe what you want in plain English and let the platform auto-write the automation for you. No need to worry about syntax or structure; write naturally (e.g., “extract date and total from a receipt and email me a summary”).

HAL interprets your intent, selects the right actions, and produces a draft workflow that you can run or edit as needed — allowing you to move from idea to execution faster.

How to Enable HAL

1. Navigate to Settings > Preferences > Department.

2. Find AI-Assisted Hyperautomation Lifecycle (HAL).

3. Toggle the switch on.

Once HAL is enabled, clicking on + New Playground will open a menu, allowing you to select a template or start from scratch. Then describe your task in plain English, and Auto-Write will generate the automation for you.

Language & Logic

Beyond procedures, use keywords, comments, conditionals, and other elements to write and structure automations in Kognitos. Learn more below:

Books

A Book is a set of related automation procedures (tasks) that can extend an agent’s capabilities. Adding a Book to an agent enables the agent to learn new skills and integrate with external tools. Kognitos offers many Books that can be added to your agents, which are built around either:

• A specific domain (Document Processing, HTML)

• An integration (Microsoft Excel, Slack, Salesforce, etc.)

How to Add a Book to Your Agent

1. Click on Books from the left navigation menu.

2. Click on + New Book.

3. Search for the name of the Book you'd like to add and click on it.

1. If the Book requires configuration, you will be prompted to provide configuration details.

2. Click Add to finish adding your Book.

3. Publish your agent.