Helio (AI assistant)
Chat with Helio, your AI co-worker: ask about your agents, run checks, and apply reviewed changes to setup, data, and channels.
Objective
Helio is your AI co-worker for building and running agents. It is a full-screen chat, like a messaging app, where you talk in plain language and Helio helps you understand, diagnose, fix, and change your agents. You can ask about your whole workspace ("which of my agents needs attention?") or focus on one agent and ask Helio to adjust its instructions, channels, capabilities, data, and more. Every change Helio suggests is shown to you first as a card you review and apply — Helio never changes anything on its own.
Access
Sidebar -> Helio
Route: /app/{tenant}/helio
You can also reach Helio already focused on a specific agent:
- From the Agents list, use Ask Helio on an agent's card (opens /app/{tenant}/helio?agent={id}).
- From an agent's Edit screen, use the Helio button (top-right).
Roles
- Open and use Helio: all roles (owner, admin, agent).
- Changes Helio applies follow the same permissions as doing them by hand. Actions restricted to owner and admin elsewhere (for example duplicating or deleting) stay restricted when requested through Helio.
Prerequisites
- Your own OpenAI API key. Helio runs on your OpenAI key. If none is connected, the chat opens with a short welcome and an inline field to add one; until a usable key is saved, the composer stays disabled.
- If a key is present but rejected or out of balance, Helio stays blocked and tells you to fix the key or add funds to your OpenAI account.
- An active workspace. Creating an agent through Helio runs the same checks as the Agents module (verified email, active subscription, within your plan's agent limit).
- To work on an existing agent, you need at least one agent — or you can create one inline from here.
The single chat and the "Working on" selector
Helio has one composer at the bottom that never changes. A Working on dropdown (and the left rail of agents) picks what Helio is focused on:
- General — questions about your whole workspace.
- A specific agent — the copilot focused on that one agent.
- New agent — the inline creation flow.
Switching focus keeps your history; each thread is saved on its own.
General (whole-workspace) questions
With General selected, Helio answers questions that span your account. It can:
- Give you a tenant-wide overview — which agents need attention and why, in plain language.
- Look up contacts in your CRM (by name, email, phone, or status) and report the totals.
- Check your AI credits and tell you where you stand.
- Give a teams overview, when Teams is enabled for your workspace.
General is for reading and answering, not editing. To change an agent, pick that agent in Working on first — Helio will say so if you ask it to change something while in General.
Helio also recognizes a few shortcuts here: a greeting gets a friendly reply; asking to "create a new agent" opens the creation flow; naming one of your agents ("open my Bookings agent") jumps straight to it.
Working on a specific agent
Pick an agent and Helio loads that agent's current setup so it can reason about the real configuration. Ask it anything about that agent — to explain a setting, investigate a problem, or make a change.
Checks Helio can run
When it helps to investigate before answering, Helio runs a check and reads the result for you. It never shows raw internals — it explains what it found in plain language.
| Check | Answers questions about |
|---|---|
| Performance | Usage trends, error rates, response times, and cost. |
| Integration health | Whether calendar, email, and webhooks actually work (not just that they are configured). |
| Data quality | Messy or inconsistent records in the agent's data tables. |
| Runtime behavior | Why the agent replied a certain way in real conversations. Limited to a few checks per hour; if it is momentarily unavailable, Helio says so instead of guessing. |
| Compliance | Personal-data exposure or policy risk in the prompt or data. |
Changes Helio can propose
When you ask for a change, Helio shows an Apply card with exactly what will change. You review it and click Apply. Nothing is applied automatically, and you can always decline.
| Area | Examples |
|---|---|
| Agent basics | Rename or re-describe the agent, edit its instructions (system prompt), set the reply language and timezone, change the model or response length, activate/deactivate, or duplicate it. |
| Channels | Turn a channel (WhatsApp, Web Chat, Email, Voice) on or off. |
| Capabilities | Enable or disable documents (RAG), data tables (SQL), web search, CRM, calendar, Gmail, and channel history; set which CRM actions the agent may take. |
| Documents | Assign or unassign documents, reprocess a document, regenerate its overview, or remove one from the knowledge base. You can also attach a document straight into the chat (PDF, TXT, MD, DOCX). |
| Data tables | Create or edit a table, assign/unassign it, change its allowed operations, and add, edit, delete, or de-duplicate rows. |
| CRM | Create or update contacts, add custom fields, and manage pipeline stages. |
| Webhooks | Create or edit a webhook tool and assign/unassign it. Any secret (token, key, password) is entered by you directly in the Apply card and encrypted — you never type it into the chat, and Helio never sees it. |
| Integrations | Guidance, and inline setup, to connect a missing integration or API key. |
| Voice | Update a voice agent's greeting, language, inactivity timeout, and recording/transcription/summary/sentiment options. |
| Scheduled tasks | Create, edit, pause or resume, delete, or run a task now. Running a task now can take up to about a minute and a half. |
| Teams | Create a team, manage its specialists, and set responder mode. Gradual rollout and plan-gated — see Common notes. |
Create a new agent inline
Choose New agent (left rail or the Working on dropdown) to build an agent without leaving Helio. The flow moves through four steps: Describe, Review, Data, Done. Describe what the agent should do and pick its channels; Helio drafts a name, description, instructions, and recommended capabilities; you review and adjust, then create. This uses your OpenAI key like the rest of Helio. For the full agent-creation reference, see AI Agents.
Conversation history
Your Helio chats are saved automatically, per user (only you see your own).
- New conversation starts a fresh thread; your previous one is kept in history, not overwritten.
- Recent in the left rail lists your latest conversations (up to 30), newest first, each with a title and how long ago it was updated. Open one to continue it.
- Delete removes a conversation from your history (this can't be undone).
- Each conversation has a length limit of 20 messages. As you approach it, Helio warns you; at the limit it invites you to start a new conversation and keeps what you covered in history.
- Individual messages are limited to 16,000 characters.
- While Helio is replying you can press Stop generating to end the response early and keep what was written so far.
Good practices
- Focus Helio on the right thing: use General for workspace-wide questions and pick a specific agent before asking for changes.
- Read each Apply card before applying — it shows exactly what will change.
- Let Helio investigate. Asking "why did my agent answer that?" or "is my calendar actually working?" lets it run the matching check instead of guessing.
- Enter webhook secrets only in the Apply card's secure field, never in the chat.
- Start a new conversation for a new topic; it keeps threads focused and within the length limit.
Common notes
- Composer disabled or "Connect your OpenAI key above to start": add a working OpenAI API key inline.
- Key connected but no balance: your OpenAI account is out of funds — add funds, then return.
- "This conversation has reached its length limit": start a new conversation. What you covered stays in your history.
- Helio won't change an agent from General: pick the agent in Working on first. General can read and report, but changes need an agent in focus.
- A change area isn't offered (for example Teams or responder mode): those are a gradual rollout and depend on your plan — contact support if you need them.