Modes
Every assistant operates in one of two modes that control how it behaves during conversations. You choose the mode when creating or editing an assistant.
Open / General
The default mode. The assistant responds freely to any conversation with no structured workflow. It can discuss any topic, use any enabled tool, and adapt to whatever the user needs.
Good for general-purpose assistants, customer support, Q&A bots, content writers, and research helpers.
To restrict an Open assistant to answer only from its knowledge base, enable the Knowledge Grounding guardrail on the Guardrails tab. This gives you fine-grained control over enforcement level, boundary instructions, and can be combined with other guardrails.
Workflow
The assistant follows a state machine that defines phases, transitions, and completion criteria. Each state in the workflow controls what the assistant does, what tools are available, and when it moves to the next phase.
Use workflow mode for structured processes: sales funnels, approval flows, document processing, intake forms, multi-step pipelines, and any scenario where the conversation needs to follow a defined path.
When workflow mode is selected, a Workflow tab appears on the assistant detail page with a visual editor for building the state machine. See Workflows for full documentation.
Technical Details
How modes work – Each mode injects specific behavior rules into the system prompt. In Open/General mode, no structural constraints are added. In Workflow mode, the current state definition, available transitions, gathered data, and state-specific instructions are injected on every turn, giving the assistant continuous awareness of where it is in the process and what it should do next.
State machine execution – The workflow engine evaluates transition guards after each agent turn. When a guard condition is met, the engine advances to the next state, updates the system prompt, and continues the conversation in the new context. Terminal states (those with no outgoing transitions) complete the workflow.