QodeAssist/docs/creating-agents.md

Creating and Extending Agents

An agent is a TOML profile that tells QodeAssist which provider to call, which model to use, and exactly what request body to send. All bundled agents (Settings → QodeAssist → Agents) are built from the same files described here — anything a bundled agent does, a user agent can do too.

Where user agents live

Drop *.toml files into the user agents directory:

OS	Path
Linux / macOS	~/.config/QtProject/qtcreator/qodeassist/config/agents/
Windows	%APPDATA%\QtProject\qtcreator\qodeassist\config\agents\

QodeAssist creates the directory on startup. Files are loaded at plugin startup; after adding or editing a file, restart Qt Creator.

Two layers are loaded:

1. Bundled agents shipped inside the plugin — read-only.
2. User agents from the directory above (marked with a user pill).

Agent names are global across both layers. A user file that reuses a bundled agent's name is rejected with an error — bundled agents cannot be replaced; create your own agent under a new name and extends what you want to build on. Two user files with the same name produce a warning, and the alphabetically later file wins.

Load errors and warnings (TOML syntax, unknown keys, missing extends parents, bodies that don't render to valid JSON) are reported in Qt Creator's General Messages pane, prefixed with [Agents].

Minimal example

A custom agent is a thin delta over a bundled wire base: extend it, set the model, override only what differs. The base already carries the provider, the endpoint and the request-body serialization — you add the policy.

schema_version = 1

extends = "Claude Base Chat"
name    = "My Claude"
model   = "claude-sonnet-4-6"

Override a body field or the persona:

schema_version = 1

extends = "Claude Base Chat"
name    = "My Claude (low temp)"
model   = "claude-sonnet-4-6"

system_prompt = """You are a terse code reviewer."""

[body]
temperature = 0.3

Point a base at a different OpenAI-compatible provider by overriding the provider instance and model:

schema_version = 1

extends           = "OpenAI Base Chat"
name              = "My DeepSeek"
provider_instance = "OpenAI Compatible"
model             = "deepseek-chat"

Bundled agents are read-only — vary a preset by creating your own under a new name. If all you want is a different model, you don't even need a file: set the per-agent model override in the settings UI.

Key reference

Key	Required	Meaning
schema_version	no (default 1)	Format version; the plugin refuses files newer than it supports.
name	yes	Unique identifier; shown in the UI, referenced by rosters and extends.
description	no	Tooltip text in the Agents list.
provider_instance	yes*	Name of a provider instance (see below).
model	yes*	Default model; can be overridden per agent in settings.
endpoint	yes*	Path appended to the provider instance URL. May contain ${MODEL} (e.g. Google: /models/${MODEL}:streamGenerateContent?alt=sse).
system_prompt	no	Jinja template for the system prompt (see building blocks below). FIM agents usually omit it.
tags	no	Free-form strings shown as pills in the UI for discoverability.
enable_thinking	no	Capability hint (UI badge). The [body] is the source of truth for what is sent.
enable_tools	no	Lets the provider inject tool definitions into the request.
cache_prompt / cache_ttl	no	Prompt caching (Anthropic); cache_ttl = "1h" selects the long TTL.
cache_breakpoints	no	Which cache points to set when cache_prompt is on: any of "system", "tools", "history". Empty/omitted = all three.
extends	no	Name of a parent agent to inherit from.
abstract	no	Mark as template-only: it can be extended but is never loaded as a usable agent. Not inherited.
hidden	no	Loaded and usable, but not listed in selection UIs. Not inherited.
[match]	no	Routing constraints (see Routing).
[body]	yes*	The literal request body (see below).

* required after extends resolution — a child inherits these from its parent, so it only states what differs.

Required keys checked at load

A concrete (non-abstract) agent must end up with name, provider_instance, model, endpoint, and a non-empty [body]. Unknown keys anywhere at the top level or in [match] produce a warning — this catches typos like enable_thinkin.

Provider instances

provider_instance refers to a provider configuration (URL + API key reference + client API). Bundled instances:

Claude, Codestral, Google AI, llama.cpp, LM Studio (Chat Completions), LM Studio (Responses API), Mistral AI, Ollama (Native), Ollama (OpenAI-compatible), OpenAI (Chat Completions), OpenAI (Responses API), OpenAI Compatible, OpenRouter.

User-defined instances live next to agents in …/qodeassist/config/providers/*.toml and follow the same override-by-name layering.

extends — inheriting from another agent

A child deep-merges over its parent: scalar keys are replaced, tables (such as [body] and [body.options]) merge key-by-key, and arrays are replaced whole (a child that wants the parent's tags plus one more must restate the full list). Chains can be deeper than one level; cycles and missing parents are load errors.

abstract and hidden are never inherited — extending a hidden agent yields a visible child unless the child says otherwise.

Every provider ships an abstract wire base that carries only the provider instance, endpoint and the request-body serialization — no model, persona, tags or sampling. Extending one and setting model is all a custom agent needs:

Base	Provider / API
Claude Base Chat	Claude, Anthropic Messages (/v1/messages)
OpenAI Base Chat	OpenAI, Chat Completions (/chat/completions)
OpenAI Base Responses	OpenAI, Responses API (/responses)
Google Base Chat	Google AI, Gemini generateContent
Ollama Base Chat	Ollama, native /api/chat
Ollama Base FIM	Ollama, native /api/generate fill-in-the-middle

For any OpenAI-compatible provider (Mistral, OpenRouter, LM Studio, llama.cpp, DeepSeek, …) extend OpenAI Base Chat and override provider_instance.

Each bundled concrete agent (Claude Chat — Sonnet, Claude Completion, OpenAI Chat, OpenAI Chat — Responses, Google Chat, Ollama Chat — Simple, Ollama Completion — FIM) is itself a thin delta over one of these bases and works as a parent too — extends = "Claude Chat — Sonnet" inherits everything including the model.

[body] — the request, literally

[body] is the request body, written exactly like the provider's curl example. Per key, recursively:

• string containing jinja ({{ or {%) — rendered, and the output is spliced in as raw JSON. A render that produces nothing drops the key.
• plain string / number / bool / table — passed through unchanged.

[body]
max_tokens  = 16000
stream      = true
thinking    = { type = "adaptive", display = "summarized" }

The message-array serialization (messages / contents / input, plus the system renderer) lives in the wire base; a concrete agent that extends a base inherits it and usually sets only scalar policy fields like the ones above. A from-scratch agent (no extends) must carry the full serialization itself — copy a bundled base's [body] as the starting point.

There are no runtime toggles: a thinking variant is a separate agent file that carries the thinking fields in its body.

Every agent body is dry-run rendered at load against a synthetic conversation (text, thinking, tool calls, tool results, images), so jinja syntax errors, unknown callbacks, missing partials, and invalid JSON are reported at startup — not mid-conversation. Trailing commas emitted by loops are stripped automatically; don't bother with loop.is_last bookkeeping.

Template data (ctx)

Field	Content
ctx.system_prompt	Rendered system prompt (present only if the agent has one).
ctx.prefix / ctx.suffix	Code around the cursor (FIM/completion sessions).
ctx.files_metadata	Array of { file_path, content } for attached files.
ctx.history	Array of messages: { role, content, content_blocks, images? }.

content is the message's flattened text; content_blocks is the structured form:

type	Fields
text	text
thinking	thinking, signature
redacted_thinking	data
tool_use	id, name, input (JSON object)
tool_result	tool_use_id, content, name
image	data, media_type, is_url

Callbacks available in [body]

Callback	Purpose
tojson(x)	Serialize any value as JSON (correct quoting/escaping). Use it for every interpolated value.
filter_by_type(blocks, "tool_use")	Subset of content_blocks with the given type.
filter_skip_role(history, "system")	History without messages of a role.
strip_signature_suffix(s)	Remove a trailing [Signature: …] marker.

Partials and {% include %}

The message-array serialization is inlined directly in each bundled wire base — there are no bundled partials to include. The {% include %} mechanism still works for your own partials: drop a partials/*.jinja next to your agent TOML and include it with {% include "partials/my_messages.jinja" %}. Includes resolve against the bundled root first, then the user agent's own directory; paths with .. or a leading / are rejected.

system_prompt — composable building blocks

system_prompt is itself a jinja template, rendered with:

Helper	Purpose
{{ read_file("${PROJECT_DIR}/STYLE.md") }}	Inline a file. Reads are restricted to the project directory, your QodeAssist user directory (${CONFIG_DIR}), and bundled :/… resources.
{{ file_exists(p) }} / {{ read_dir(p) }}	Existence check / directory listing (same root restrictions).
{{ head_lines(s, n) }}	First n lines of a string.
basename, dirname, ext, lower, upper	Path/string helpers.
${PROJECT_DIR}, ${CONFIG_DIR}	Substituted before rendering. ${CONFIG_DIR} is your QodeAssist user directory (where agent configs live).

Example:

system_prompt = """
{{ read_file("${CONFIG_DIR}/roles/reviewer.md") }}

{% if file_exists("${PROJECT_DIR}/.qodeassist-style.md") %}
Project conventions:
{{ read_file("${PROJECT_DIR}/.qodeassist-style.md") }}
{% endif %}
"""

Reads fail loud: a path outside those roots — or a read_file whose target is missing — aborts the request with a clear error instead of silently rendering an empty prompt. For a genuinely optional file, guard it with file_exists, which returns false for an allowed-but-absent path; only a path outside the roots is treated as an authoring error and rejected outright.

The persona is simply what system_prompt renders to — inline the text or pull shared text from a markdown file with read_file. The bundled chat agents do exactly this: their system_prompt is {{ read_file(":/roles/qt-cpp-developer.md") }}, reading the shipped role from the plugin resources. To switch personas in the chat, switch agents: a persona variant is a thin extends child that overrides only system_prompt (e.g. pointing read_file at any file of your own under ${CONFIG_DIR}/… or ${PROJECT_DIR}/…). read_file reads exactly the path you give it — there is no override convention that swaps a bundled file for a same-named user file.

Routing — [match] and the completion roster

[match] drives code completion routing only. Completion has an ordered roster of agents; for the current file the first roster entry whose [match] accepts wins. The other pipelines don't route: chat shows an allow-list of agents and you pick one in the panel; quick refactor and chat compression each use a single configured agent (set in QodeAssist → General).

[match]
file_patterns = ["*.qml", "*.js"]
path_patterns = ["*/tests/*"]
project_names = ["MyProject"]

• Dimensions are ANDed; an empty dimension is unconstrained; an entirely empty/absent [match] is a catch-all.
• file_patterns are case-insensitive globs tested against the file name and the full path; path_patterns against the full path only.
• project_names are exact, case-sensitive project names.

Typical completion setup: a specialized agent (e.g. an Ollama FIM variant with *.qml) first, a catch-all agent last.

Models

The TOML model is only the default. The settings UI can set a per-agent override (stored in agent_models.json); the resolved model is also substituted into ${MODEL} in endpoint before sending.

Contributing your agent to QodeAssist

The bundled agent set grows through contributions — if you've made an agent for a provider or model that others could use, please send it upstream instead of keeping it local. No C++ is needed:

1. Develop and verify the agent locally in the user agents directory.
2. In a fork, copy the TOML to sources/agents/ and register the file in sources/agents/agents.qrc.
3. Keep it a thin delta: extend the matching provider base and set only name, description, model, tags (and [body] keys that genuinely differ). Look at claude_chat.toml or ollama_fim.toml for the expected shape.
4. Run the tests (QodeAssistTest): BundledAgentsTest automatically loads every bundled agent, resolves its extends chain, and dry-renders its [body] — if your TOML passes, it works.
5. Open a pull request.

Conventions:

• File name: <provider>_<model_or_purpose>_<kind>.toml (e.g. openrouter_deepseek_chat.toml).
• name is user-visible and must be unique; include the provider and model (e.g. OpenRouter DeepSeek Chat).
• Specialized completion agents should carry a [match] block so routing can pick them automatically (e.g. file_patterns = ["*.qml"]).
• A new OpenAI-compatible provider is TOML-only: add a provider instance file in sources/providersConfig/, then a concrete agent that extends OpenAI Base Chat and overrides provider_instance. A genuinely new request/response format (a new wire base) is the only thing that needs C++.

Troubleshooting

• Agent missing from the list — check General Messages for [Agents] error: lines; the file failed to parse, resolve, or validate.
• … has the same name as a bundled agent — bundled agents cannot be replaced — pick a different name; use extends to inherit from the bundled agent instead.
• Unknown key 'x' … ignored (typo?) — the key isn't part of the schema; compare with the table above.
• Agent 'X' extends unknown agent 'Y' — the parent's name (not file name) must match exactly; the parent must be bundled or in the same directory.
• [body] failed to render to valid JSON — the dry run failed; the log contains the rendered snippet. Usually a missing tojson(...) around an interpolated string.
• Edits not picked up — agents are loaded at startup; restart Qt Creator.