Sub-agents

Sub-agents are published Airia catalog agents that Airia Agent can invoke when a user’s request is best handled by a specialized agent. See Extending Airia Agent for guidance on when to use sub-agents versus tools.

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Prerequisites

The agent you want to add must be:

1. Built and tested in Agent Studio
2. Published to the Airia Catalog — unpublished agents do not appear in the sub-agent picker

If an agent is not published yet, go to the agent’s interface settings and publish it to the catalog before continuing.

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Add a sub-agent

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Remove a sub-agent

1. In the Sub-agents tab, find the agent in the Configured Sub-agents list
2. Click the remove icon (or deselect the agent in the picker)
3. Click Save

Removing a sub-agent does not affect the underlying catalog agent — it remains published and accessible directly in the catalog.

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How delegation works

At runtime, Airia Agent evaluates each user message against all configured tools and sub-agents. When it identifies that a request falls within a sub-agent’s domain, it invokes the sub-agent and incorporates the response into its reply. Sub-agents run with their own:

• System prompt — the instructions you wrote when building the agent
• Tools — any tools the sub-agent is configured with
• Knowledge — any data sources or context the sub-agent has access to

This means the sub-agent’s behavior is self-contained. Configuring a sub-agent in Airia Agent does not change how it behaves when users access it directly from the catalog.