---
title: "Assistants"
description: "Create an assistant, write its context and answer guidelines, and choose what it reads with the all, selected or tags knowledge modes."
canonical: "https://lookio.app/docs/platform/assistants"
updated: "2026-10-24"
---

# Assistants

An assistant answers questions from the resources you give it. Open **Assistants** and choose **Create an assistant**. The form opens with a name, a context and answer guidelines you can keep or change, and **Create with AI** hands the request to Lookio AI. Once created, each field saves on its own.

## Settings

| Setting               | What it is                                                  | Limit             |
| --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- |
| **Name**              | How you recognise it.                                       | 120 characters    |
| **Context**           | What the assistant is and who it talks to.                  | 12,000 characters |
| **Answer guidelines** | How answers are written: language, format, level of detail. | 12,000 characters |
| **Answers from**      | What it reads. See below.                                   |                   |

### Context

Write what the assistant is and who it talks to, in plain words. Answering only from the resources is built in: there is no need to write it.

```text title="Example"
You are the assistant of Halden's help center, a furniture shop. You answer customers who want a quick, accurate answer.
```

**Clear** empties the field to start from nothing.

### Answer guidelines

Say how the answer should look.

```text title="Example"
Answer in the customer's language, in three sentences at most. Use a list for steps.
```

Keep the two apart: the context decides who the assistant is and who it talks to, the guidelines decide how its answers read.

## What an assistant reads

An assistant has one knowledge mode at a time.

| Mode                   | It reads                                                      | Use it when                                             |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| **All resources**      | Every resource of the workspace, including those added later. | You have one knowledge base.                            |
| **Selected resources** | Only the resources you pick, up to 200.                       | An assistant has a narrow job.                          |
| **Tags**               | Every resource carrying a tag it follows, now or later.       | Resources come and go, and you organise them with tags. |

Switching mode keeps the lists of the other modes. If you go from **Selected** to **Tags** and back, your picks are still there.

An assistant that reads nothing says so in the list: **Selected** with no pick, **Tags** with a tag nobody carries, or **All** in a workspace with no resource. It cannot be asked: the chat, the API, the CLI, the MCP server and Lookio AI refuse the question with `assistant_has_no_resources` before anything is charged, and a widget on it does not show on your site until the assistant reads a resource.

An assistant answers only from resources that are `ready`. See [Resources](/docs/platform/resources#statuses).

When you create an assistant over the API without a `knowledge` value, Lookio infers it: `tags` if you gave only tags, `selected` otherwise. Send `all` to read every resource.

## Who can use an assistant

On the Free plan, every member can use every assistant. On paid plans, an admin chooses which assistants each member may use. See [Members and permissions](/docs/platform/members-and-permissions).

An API key can be limited to a list of assistants. A key limited this way cannot create new assistants.

## Change or delete an assistant

Edit any field at any time. The next question uses the new settings.

Deleting an assistant keeps its resources. The conversations people had with it stay readable, marked as coming from a deleted assistant, but nobody can continue them. An assistant that a [widget](/docs/widget/overview) answers for cannot be deleted until the widget is deleted or moved to another assistant. See [Deleting things](/docs/platform/deleting).

## From the API, the CLI and MCP

- API: [Create an assistant](/docs/api/assistants/create-assistant), [Update an assistant](/docs/api/assistants/update-assistant), [Ask an assistant](/docs/api/assistants/query-assistant).
- CLI: `lookio assistants`, `lookio ask`.
- MCP: `list_assistants`, `get_assistant`, `create_assistant`, `update_assistant`, `ask_assistant`.