# Software Factory: Manage the Linked Agent from Builder Chat

Ask Builder chat to change your project's linked Chipp agent: its system prompt, custom actions, variables and secrets, knowledge, settings, and publishing. Secrets go through a secure form, never the chat.

---

Builder chat can configure the Chipp agent that is linked to your project. You
ask in the same conversation where you build the app. You do not switch to the
agent's settings pages, and Builder chat does not tell you to set variables or
actions by hand.

The linked agent is the app's own agent (the one the AI agent window in Builder
shows), or the project's agent when the app has none.

## What you can ask for

- **System prompt.** "Make the agent answer in short bullets." Builder chat reads
  the current prompt, changes it, and tells you which lines it removed and added.
- **Custom actions.** "Add an action that looks up an order by number." Builder
  chat lists, creates, changes and deletes the agent's HTTP actions. The checks
  are the same as in Chipp: the address must be a full https address, and a
  service Chipp already integrates with is refused.
- **Variables and secrets.** "The action needs my Calendra Slack key." See
  [Secrets](#secrets) below.
- **Knowledge.** Add a web page or text, rename a source, set its auto-refresh,
  re-process a source, or remove one.
- **Settings.** Capabilities, model, welcome message, brand, voice, access and
  the other agent settings.
- **Publish.** Make the saved changes live for the agent's end users.

The open pages in the right pane (Prompt, Integrations, History and the rest)
refresh by themselves after each change. The change also appears in the agent's
History.

## Secrets

A secret value never goes through the chat. When an action needs one, Builder
chat shows a secure form right in the conversation. You type the value into
the form. The value is encrypted and Builder chat never sees it: not in the
messages, not in the tool results, not in logs. After you submit, Builder chat
saves it as a secret application variable on the agent. The action then
refers to it by name, for example `{{var.CALENDRA_SLACK_KEY}}`.

Builder chat can read which variables exist, their types, and whether a value
is set. It cannot read a value.

The submitted value is also kept in the project's secure credential store, as
every secret you give Builder chat is, and it reaches the project's deployment
like any other project secret.

## Approvals and access

- Builder chat asks you before it makes a change, as it does for other writes.
  Publishing the agent, deleting a custom action, and deleting a knowledge source
  ask every time, even in auto-approve mode.
- It acts as you. It can change only what you can change in Chipp. A viewer in
  the agent's workspace cannot read or change the agent through Builder chat,
  and an Editor can.
- It always acts on the agent linked to this project. It cannot be pointed at
  another agent, even by an instruction that names one.
- If the project has no linked agent, Builder chat says so and changes nothing.
  Create the agent first (Builder chat can do that from `chipp/agent.json`).
- End users and the agent's own chat can never change an agent through this path.

## Publishing the agent is not publishing the project

"Publish the agent" publishes the Chipp agent only. It does not ship the
project's code. To ship the code, publish the draft as usual.

## Related

- **[Embedded Chipp Agent](/docs/guides/alchemist-embedded-chipp-agent-overview/)**: bind an agent to your project and embed it in your app
- **[Alchemist MCP server](/docs/guides/alchemist-mcp-server/)**: the tools Builder chat uses