Publish a Pipeline as an Agentic Tool
Prepare and publish a Pipeline as an Agentic Tool, then attach it to a custom agent for chat.
Prepare a Pipeline's current saved graph as an Agentic Tool contract, publish it, and check its readiness. Publishing creates the tool, but does not add it to a custom agent or make it available in Ask Salt.
Prerequisites
- A Pipeline you can edit and run. If you need one, start with Pipeline Builder.
- A name for the Pipeline. You can rename it from the Pipeline header.
- A successful run. Add Input and Output nodes only for values you want the Agentic Tool to receive or return.
The Publish button stays disabled until you resolve every validation issue. The messages are Run the pipeline successfully before publishing., Pipeline needs a name., and Add a description so the agent knows what this tool does.
The publish form does not define side-effect risk or add approval requirements. Do not publish Pipelines that perform destructive or irreversible external actions.
Publish the Agentic Tool
Run the Pipeline successfully
Run the Pipeline until it completes successfully. The successful run unlocks publishing; Salt derives the Agentic Tool contract from the Pipeline's current saved graph, not from that run.
Open the Publish page
Click Publish in the Pipeline header. The Publish page shows the publishing surface buttons enabled for your account.
Open the Agentic Tool surface
Click Agentic Tool. The surface shows Readiness, Tool contract, Execution, Inputs, and Outputs sections.
Write the Description
Under Tool contract, use Description to explain what the Pipeline does, when a custom agent should and should not use it, its limitations, and any side effects. Salt saves the description to the Pipeline and clears its publish validation message.
Configure the Inputs
For each configurable input under Inputs, choose Agent decides to let the custom agent provide the value at call time, or Use pipeline value to keep the value hidden from the custom agent. Rows that do not allow external overrides show Override Disabled instead of a selector.
Agent-decided inputs also let you set Description, Required, and Important, and each row shows its selected policy under Exposure.
Configure the Outputs
Each output defaults to the Primary role. You can change it to Secondary or Diagnostic and optionally add a Description.
Set the Timeout budget
Under Execution, choose 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, or Custom. A custom timeout accepts a whole number from 30 through 900 seconds, and the selected budget appears below the control.
Publish the Agentic Tool
Click Publish. The status changes to Published, and Readiness shows Live with Published and live. when the tool matches the latest successful run.
Check readiness and lifecycle
The Readiness section uses these states:
- Run required: The Pipeline has no successful run, so publishing is blocked.
- Not published: The Agentic Tool has no published version. Discovery failures appear separately.
- Live: The published tool matches the latest successful run.
After you change and successfully rerun the Pipeline, agents continue using the published version. The readiness banner says Your pipeline has changed since you last published. Agents keep calling the published tool until you publish the update.
Only a tool with Published status is callable in a regular agent chat. The Actions menu exposes lifecycle actions according to the current status:
- Pause stops agent calls. Click Publish to publish the tool again.
- Deprecate stops agent calls and makes the Agentic Tool configuration read-only.
- Archive stops agent calls and is terminal for that published tool.
Paused and deprecated tools leave the published tool catalog. A custom agent with an existing binding may show the tool as Unavailable until you publish it again or remove the binding.
Publishing alone does not make the Agentic Tool available in chat. Next, attach the Agentic Tool to a custom agent, click Save in the agent editor, and test the custom agent in Ask Salt.