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

# Creating Agents

> How an Agent actually gets created today: Studio form, or installing a skill/template.

There are two real ways an Agent comes into existence today. There is **no CLI command that creates an agent from scratch** — `machina agent` only has `list`, `get`, `run`, and `executions` (confirmed directly in `machina-cli`'s source; there's no `agent create`).

## 1. Create it in Studio

Studio → your project → **Agents → New Agent**. The form asks for exactly four things:

| Field       | Notes                                                            |
| ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Title       | Display name.                                                    |
| Name        | Slug/identifier — **set once, can't be changed after creation**. |
| Description | Free text.                                                       |
| Status      | `active` or `inactive`.                                          |

That's the entire creation form. Two things it deliberately does **not** ask for at creation time:

* **Frequency** (how often it runs) — set afterward, from the agent's detail page. See [Configuring Agents](/agents/configuring-agents).
* **Workflows** (what it actually runs) — also attached afterward, not at creation.

So a brand-new agent exists as an identity + status shell; you wire it up to a schedule and to workflows as a second step.

## 2. Install a skill or template that provisions one

`machina skills install <path>` / `machina template install <path>` provisions cloud resources for your project — connectors, mappings, datasets, and (depending on the package) agents already wired to their workflows. This is the path for reusing a pre-built setup (e.g. one of the [Agent Templates](/agent-templates/onboarding)) instead of assembling an agent by hand.

```bash theme={null}
machina skills install <skill-path>
# or, for the older compatibility surface:
machina template install agent-templates/<template-name>
```

<Info>
  Which exact templates provision an agent (versus just workflows/connectors) depends on
  that template's own packaged config — this page doesn't claim a specific list. Run
  `machina skills info <path>` (or check the template's `SKILL.md`) to see what a given
  package actually installs before you rely on it as your source of a scheduled agent.
</Info>

## Related

* [Configuring Agents](/agents/configuring-agents) — set frequency and status after creation.
* [`machina skills`](/cli/commands/skills) / [`machina template`](/cli/commands/template) — the CLI side of installing a package.