> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.decisional.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Core Concepts

> The building blocks of Decisional

## Overview

Decisional is built around a few core concepts. Understanding these will help you get the most out of the platform.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Dex" icon="message">
    The conversational operator for running agents and reviewing agent details
  </Card>

  <Card title="Agents" icon="robot">
    Durable AI workers that own repeatable workflows
  </Card>

  <Card title="Workflows" icon="diagram-project">
    The step-by-step plans your agents create and execute
  </Card>

  <Card title="Apps" icon="window">
    External services where your team and agents get work done
  </Card>

  <Card title="Integrations" icon="plug">
    Connections that expose app accounts, tools, and triggers
  </Card>

  <Card title="Runs" icon="play">
    Every time your agent executes its workflow
  </Card>

  <Card title="Sources" icon="folder-open">
    Documents and files that give your agents context
  </Card>

  <Card title="Approvals" icon="user-check">
    Human review controls for sensitive actions and workflow gates
  </Card>

  <Card title="Workspaces" icon="users">
    Where your team organizes agents and collaborates
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

***

## Dex

Dex is the conversational operator for Decisional. Use Dex to run agents, ask what happened in a run, view agent details, review approvals, or complete one-off tasks against the tools and context you have authorized.

<Card title="Dex" icon="message" href="/guides/ai-assistant">
  Learn how Dex works across the web app, Slack, email, and mobile.
</Card>

***

## Agents

Agents are the core operating units in Decisional. Each agent is an AI worker that owns a specific workflow and runs it for you.

You create an agent by describing what you want it to do in the Decisional web app. Once live, the agent runs from manual runs, schedules, triggers, or API calls, and you manage changes through the agent surfaces.

### What Makes Up an Agent

* **Instructions** — what you told the agent to do, written in plain English
* **Workflow** — the step-by-step plan the agent built to carry out your instructions
* **Integrations** — connections that give the agent tools and triggers for apps such as email, CRM, team chat, and spreadsheets
* **Sources** — documents and files that give your agent context
* **Triggers** — how your agent gets activated (schedule, event, or manual)
* **Approval policy** — when the agent pauses, asks for review, bypasses eligible approvals, or blocks an action

### Agent Operating Modes

| Mode | Purpose |
| - | - |
| **Chat Mode** | Talk with the agent, ask questions, run one-off tasks, and inspect context |
| **Operator Mode** | Configure instructions, workflow, tools, triggers, skills, sources, runs, and policy |
| **Run Mode** | Share a focused run page with people who should run or review work without changing the agent |

<Card title="Agent Modes" icon="robot" href="/agents/modes">
  Understand Chat Mode, Operator Mode, and Run Mode for agents.
</Card>

### Agent States

Your agent moves through these states as you set it up:

* **Draft** — still being configured or built
* **Ready** — tested and ready to go live
* **Live** — available for scheduled, triggered, API, or manual runs
* **Paused** — temporarily stopped, can be resumed anytime

***

## Workflows

When you describe what you want, your agent creates a workflow — a series of steps it follows to get the job done.

Each step in the workflow is a **node**. Nodes can do things like:

* Read data from a spreadsheet
* Call an API or integration
* Process a document
* Run AI reasoning
* Write results back

You do not need to draw every workflow step by hand. Decisional generates the graph from your instructions, then you review and change it in Operator Mode.

### Workflow Viewer

You can see your agent's workflow visually at any time. It shows every node, how they connect, and the status of each step during a run.

***

## Apps

Apps are external services where your team already works, such as Gmail, Slack, HubSpot, Google Sheets, or your own internal software. Agents can read from apps, take actions in them, use app events to start runs, and send completed work back to them.

In Decisional, you browse and manage apps through the **Integrations** catalog. Each catalog entry describes the app and shows its connection type, connected accounts, available tools, and triggers.

### Apps, Integrations, and Credentials

* An **app** is the external system where the work or data lives
* An **integration** defines how Decisional connects to the app and what agents can do
* A **connected account** or **credential** authorizes which account the integration can use

For example, Gmail is an app. The Gmail integration exposes tools for reading and sending email, triggers for sent or received messages, and connected accounts that determine which mailbox an agent can use.

***

## Integrations

An integration is Decisional's connection layer for an app. It brings the parts an agent needs into one place:

* **Connected accounts** — the authorized app accounts available in the workspace
* **Tools** — actions an agent can call, classified as read or write operations
* **Triggers** — app events that can start an agent, delivered by polling or webhook when supported
* **Approval policy** — workspace defaults and per-tool overrides that control whether a tool runs automatically or needs review

### How Integrations Work

1. Find the app in **Integrations** or let Dex identify it while building an agent
2. Connect an account using the app's supported authentication method
3. Review its available tools, triggers, and approval policy
4. Add the integration to an agent so its workflow can use those capabilities

The Integrations page also provides **Tool activity** for reviewing calls and a **Custom integrations** builder for apps that are not already in the catalog.

<Tip>
  Open **Integrations** in the sidebar to browse apps, manage connected accounts, and review tool policies.
</Tip>

***

## Runs

Every time your agent executes its workflow, that's a run. You can see all your agent's runs from the **Runs** tab.

### Run Statuses

* **Running** — your agent is executing right now
* **Completed** — finished successfully
* **Failed** — something went wrong
* **Needs Approval** — your agent is waiting for you to approve an action

### What's in a Run

Each run shows you:

* A step-by-step breakdown of what happened at each node
* The input and output data for each step
* Files your agent produced
* How long it took

If a run fails, you can see exactly which step broke and why.

***

## Approvals

Approvals let agents pause before sensitive actions or manual decision points. A reviewer can see the context, approve the action, reject it, or route the workflow back for changes.

Approval behavior comes from:

* **Global approval mode** in Settings
* **Agent-level approval mode** for a specific agent
* **Tool approval policy** for connected tools and actions
* **Workflow gates** placed directly in a workflow

Use **Ask approvals** when you want a human review step. Use **Bypass approvals** only for stable workflows where eligible approval prompts can continue automatically.

<Card title="Approvals and Policy" icon="user-check" href="/agents/approvals">
  Learn how approval modes, bypass approvals, tool policies, and global settings work.
</Card>

***

## Sources

Sources are documents and files you upload to give your agents context. Think of them as reference material your agent can look up when it needs to.

### What You Can Upload

* **PDFs** — contracts, invoices, forms, statements
* **Spreadsheets** — price lists, templates, historical data
* **Word docs** — policies, procedures, playbooks
* **Images** — forms and receipts (your agent can read these with OCR)

### How Agents Use Sources

Decisional uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to help your agent understand documents. When your agent needs information from a source, it retrieves only the relevant sections instead of trying to process the entire file. This works even across hundreds of pages.

***

## Workspaces

Workspaces are where your team organizes agents, integrations, and credentials.

### What's in a Workspace

* Your agents
* Connected integrations and credentials
* Team members and their permissions
* Sources and documents

### Team Access

Invite members from your organization into your workspace. Workspace owners control who can view, edit, and manage agents.

If you sign up with a company email, you'll automatically join your organization's workspace. Personal email addresses get their own workspace.

***

## How It All Fits Together

<Steps>
  <Step title="Describe What You Want">
    Describe what you want automated in the Decisional web app
  </Step>

  <Step title="Agent Builds a Workflow">
    Decisional creates an inspectable step-by-step plan and identifies the required tools
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add Sources for Context">
    Upload any documents your agent needs to reference
  </Step>

  <Step title="Test and Approve">
    Run a test, review each step, and set approval policy
  </Step>

  <Step title="Go Live">
    Set a schedule, trigger, API call, public run link, or manual run path
  </Step>

  <Step title="Maintain the Agent">
    Need changes? Open Operator Mode in the Decisional web app
  </Step>
</Steps>

***

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Build your first agent in minutes
  </Card>

  <Card title="Agent Modes" icon="robot" href="/agents/modes">
    Understand Chat Mode, Operator Mode, and Run Mode
  </Card>

  <Card title="Approvals and Policy" icon="user-check" href="/agents/approvals">
    Configure review, bypass, and global approval behavior
  </Card>

  <Card title="Working with Agents" icon="robot" href="/guides/agents">
    Deep dive into agent configuration and management
  </Card>
</CardGroup>