AI Agents
| Feature Name | Orchard Core AI Agent |
| Feature ID | CrestApps.OrchardCore.AI.Agent |
The Orchard agent module surfaces agent profiles inside Orchard Core so they can participate in module-driven AI experiences such as profile-based chat, A2A hosting, and other Orchard-managed orchestration flows.
Creating agent profiles and giving profiles tools in the admin, with a screencast, is described in the User Manual under Tools and agents.
What this module adds in Orchard Core
- Orchard-aware AI tools for system, recipe, tenant, content, role, user, workflow, analytics, and communication scenarios
- agent-related profile editing support through the Orchard AI profile experience
- compatibility with Orchard modules such as A2A host, recipes, tenants, content types, contents, and workflows when those features are enabled
How to use it in Orchard
Enable Orchard Core AI Agent (listed under Artificial Intelligence in Tools → Features) together with the base AI features. Its tools then appear, grouped by category, in the Tools section of the Capabilities tab of AI profiles, profile templates and chat interactions. The Agent profile type itself (with its Description and Availability fields) comes from the base AI module. Enable the related Orchard features if you want additional tool categories to appear.
The exact tool set available to agents depends on which Orchard modules are enabled. For example, tenant-management tools only light up when Orchard tenants support is enabled, and recipe tools depend on Orchard recipes support.
For the complete Orchard-specific AI function catalog, including the feature that enables each function and its description, see AI Tools.
Orchard-specific role of agent profiles
In Orchard Core, agent profiles are useful when you want:
- specialized AI capabilities that can be attached to other AI experiences
- locally hosted agents that can be exposed through A2A Host
- Orchard-aware AI automation over content, tenants, recipes, roles, users, and workflows
Agent tools and permissions
An agent profile runs its own tools, ticked on its Capabilities tab, only when Let this agent use its tools is on. That box stores AgentMetadata.AllowToolInvocation. When it is off, AgentProxyTool in CrestApps.Core runs the agent as a single completion with no tools, whatever is ticked. An agent called by another agent never delegates further, so delegation is one level deep.
In a recipe, set it on the profile's AgentMetadata:
{
"name": "AIProfile",
"Profiles": [
{
"Name": "content-agent",
"Type": "Agent",
"Properties": {
"AgentMetadata": {
"Availability": "OnDemand",
"AllowToolInvocation": true
}
}
}
]
}
A profile template sets it with the AllowToolInvocation front-matter key, or the box of the same name in the template editor (see AI Profile Templates).
Tools are authorized per user only in chat interactions. An AI profile, and every agent it calls, runs exactly as configured: the profile is the authorization boundary, and its conversations may be anonymous. The Orchard tools in this module do not check the caller's own permissions either. An agent therefore adds no access the calling profile could not have had by ticking the same tools, but an Always available agent is offered to every profile on the site, including public chat widgets. Keep agents that change the site On demand.
Agents or tools
Splitting tools into agents trades extra model calls for smaller, focused tool sets. Each delegation is at least one more completion, plus the calling model reading the agent's answer, and details can be lost in the hand-off. The default orchestrator already trims a large tool set without agents: above ScopingThreshold (30) tools it keeps the ones most relevant to the message, and above PlanningThreshold (100) it runs a planning step first. Use an agent when an area needs many tools and its own instructions, such as content; tick tools directly when an assistant needs only a few. Do not give one profile both an agent and that agent's tools.
Feature composition
The agent module becomes more useful as you add Orchard features:
- Recipes adds recipe-related tools
- Tenants adds tenant-management tools
- Contents and Content Types add content-management tools
- Workflows adds workflow-related tools
Shared framework documentation
The reusable agent model, agent invocation patterns, and delegation concepts are documented in CrestApps.Core: