Conversation Outline

The outline is the set of guidelines that tells your agent how to conduct each conversation. You do not start from a blank page: when you describe what you need, the design agent generates a complete outline with all sections filled in. You review it, refine anything that does not fit, and launch.

The outline's Description and Knowledge fields are the primary way you give the agent shared, design-time context. When you also need per-participant context at runtime, see Conversation Context.

Think of the outline as a briefing for the person running the conversation. You define the purpose, audience, behavior, data to collect, and what should happen after completion. The agent uses that brief during every conversation.

The outline is organized into three tabs: Overview, Agent, and Data Capture.

Overview#

This tab defines the purpose of the conversation and who it's for.

Research Question#

The high-level purpose and objectives of the conversation. Why does this conversation exist? What is it trying to accomplish?

This is the agent's north star — everything it does serves this purpose.

Goals#

The specific directions you want the agent to explore. Unlike a form or survey, you do not need to translate goals into every question and branch. Describe the outcome you want, and the agent asks follow-up questions and probes as needed.

Goals are ordered by priority. If the conversation runs short, the agent focuses on the most important ones first.

Examples:

• "Understand why they almost churned before renewing"
• "Identify which competitors they evaluated and why"
• "Learn what would make them recommend us to a colleague"

Participants#

A description of who the agent is going to talk to. The more the agent knows about the audience, the more precisely it can adjust language, depth, examples, and tone.

Example: "Enterprise SaaS customers with 50+ seats who renewed in the last 90 days."

Agent#

This tab controls how the agent behaves during the conversation — its behavior, flow, and style.

Interview Guidelines#

Instructions that shape how the agent conducts the conversation. These cover three things:

• Behavior — What the agent should and shouldn't do. "Don't ask about pricing unless the participant brings it up." "If they mention a competitor, follow up on that."
• Flow — How the conversation should progress. "Start with their overall experience before going into specifics." "Wrap up after 5-7 minutes."
• Style — The tone and energy of the conversation. "Be casual and conversational." "Match the formality of a colleague chat, not a formal interview."

Navigation Flow#

Dynamic next steps after the conversation ends. Instead of one-size-fits-all, different participants can get different follow-ups based on what the agent learned during the conversation.

Examples:

• A hot lead gets routed directly to your sales calendar
• Someone just looking for information gets redirected to a resource page
• A churning customer gets a personalized retention offer
• Everyone else sees a thank-you message

By default, conversations end with a simple thank you. You can also enable a reflection — a summary of the conversation generated for the participant, so they see that their input was heard and understood.

Knowledge#

Background information the agent can reference during the conversation — product details, industry context, internal data, competitive positioning. Think of it as a briefing document.

Use knowledge when the agent needs context that participants won't provide. For example, if you're collecting feedback on a new feature, add the feature description so the agent can ask informed follow-up questions and understand what participants are referring to.

Resources#

Materials attached to the conversation. There are two types:

• Public — Shared with participants. A link to a site you want them to review, a UX mockup to react to, a document to read before the conversation.
• Private — Internal context for the agent only. A competitive analysis, a pricing sheet, internal notes — things the agent should know but not share.

For details on choosing between Knowledge, public resources, and private resources, see Knowledge & Resources.

Data Capture#

This tab controls what structured data the conversation collects. Conversation records include transcripts by default, and voice-mode conversations can include audio playback snippets where available. Use data capture when you also need structured fields.

Output Fields#

Structured, typed fields that the agent captures as part of the natural conversation. This is the key difference from traditional forms — you get consistent, structured input without burdening the participant with form-filling.

Each field has a type (string/text, number, boolean, file, or array), can be required or optional, and can have predefined options. Required fields tell the agent what it must try to collect before completion; optional fields get picked up when they come up naturally.

For example, instead of a dropdown asking "Company size: 1-10, 11-50, 50-200, 200+", the agent picks up company size from the natural flow of conversation and fills in the structured field automatically.

This means you can review structured data in the Form Data tab, include it in automation payloads, and analyze it in Analysis Sessions — all from a conversation that felt natural to the participant.

Mandatory Questions#

Use mandatory questions when you want a specific question asked exactly as written. No inference, no natural weaving: the agent asks this question verbatim. Most of the time, output fields are the better choice.

Outline Versions#

Each saved outline refinement creates a new version with a version number and a change message. This gives you a version history of how the conversation design changed over time.

Refining the Outline#

You refine the outline by talking to the design agent in natural language. You can also edit supported settings directly when you need precise control.

Examples:

• "Add a goal about understanding their evaluation process"
• "The agent should be more casual and use shorter questions"
• "Add our product FAQ as private knowledge"
• "If the participant is a decision-maker, redirect them to our sales calendar"
• "Add a required field for company size"
• "Make NPS score a mandatory question"

Each change generates a new outline version. Test the conversation after each change to see how it affects the experience.