> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.bolna.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Agent Setup
> Configure the welcome message, LLM, voice, and conversation behaviour for your graph agent.
With no node or transition selected, the inspector shows the **Agent setup** tab. This is where you configure everything that applies to the agent as a whole, rather than to a specific node.
***
## Agent Basics
The first collapsible section contains top-level agent settings.
| Field | Description |
| ------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Agent name** | The display name for this agent in the Bolna dashboard. |
| **Start node** | The entry-point node for every new call. Equivalent to clicking **Make start node** on a node in the canvas. |
| **Welcome message** | The first thing the agent says when a call connects, before any node is active. Supports `{variable}` tokens — see [Variables](/graph-agent/variables). |
| **Global prompt** | System-level prompt applied to every LLM call in this agent. Use it for persona, language rules, guardrails, and pronunciation rules. This is the `agent_information` field in the JSON schema. |
***
## Welcome message
The first thing the agent says when a call connects, before any node is active.
```
Hi there! Thanks for calling Acme support. How can I help you today?
```
You can use `{variable}` tokens in the welcome message. Any tokens here are discovered by the [Variables panel](/graph-agent/variables) so you can set test values.
***
## LLM settings
Controls the response LLM used across all nodes that don't override it individually.
| Field | Description |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Provider** | The LLM provider (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google). |
| **Model** | Specific model name. Choose from the dropdown of supported models for the selected provider. |
| **Temperature** | Controls response randomness. Lower values (0.0–0.5) produce consistent, predictable output. Higher values (0.8–1.5) produce more varied responses. |
| **Max tokens** | Cap on the number of tokens in each response. |
| **Reasoning effort** | For models that support it: `minimal`, `low`, `medium`, or `high`. Higher effort increases latency and cost; use `minimal` or `low` for most voice use cases. |
Individual nodes can override these settings in their **LLM overrides** section. The agent-level settings serve as the default for any node that doesn't override them.
***
## STT settings (speech-to-text)
Configures the transcriber that converts the caller's voice to text.
| Field | Description |
| ------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Transcriber** | Select from supported STT providers. |
| **Advanced config** | JSON editor for provider-specific settings (e.g. language hints, keywords, punctuation). |
***
## TTS settings (text-to-speech)
Configures the voice synthesis that converts the agent's text responses to audio.
| Field | Description |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Language** | The primary language for voice synthesis. |
| **Advanced config** | JSON editor for synthesizer-specific settings (voice ID, speaking rate, pitch, etc.). |
***
## Conversation settings
Controls call-level behaviour: timeouts, silence handling, backchanneling, and special modes.
### Timing
| Setting | Description | Default |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------- |
| **Welcome message delay** | Seconds to wait after the call connects before playing the welcome message. | 0 |
| **Hang up after silence** | Seconds of total silence before the agent ends the call. | — |
| **Call terminate** | Hard timeout in seconds for the entire call. | — |
### Interruption
| Setting | Description |
| ------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Number of words for interruption** | Minimum words the user must speak before the agent considers it an interruption and stops speaking. Lower values make the agent more interruptible. |
### Backchanneling
Backchanneling plays short filler phrases ("Mm-hmm", "I see") while the agent is processing, so the caller doesn't experience dead silence.
| Setting | Description |
| --------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Enabled** | Toggle backchanneling on or off. |
| **Start delay** | Seconds to wait before the first backchannel phrase plays. |
| **Message gap** | Minimum seconds between backchannel phrases. |
### Online check
Periodically checks whether the user is still on the line.
| Setting | Description |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Enabled** | Toggle online check on or off. |
| **Trigger after** | Seconds of silence before checking if the user is still there. |
| **Check message** | The phrase the agent says to check (e.g. "Are you still there?"). Supports multilingual object (`{"en": "...", "hi": "..."}`). |
### Voicemail detection
| Setting | Description |
| ---------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Enabled** | Toggle voicemail detection on or off. |
| **Detection duration** | Seconds to wait while determining whether the call went to voicemail. |
### Discard pre-welcome utterance
When enabled, any speech detected before the welcome message finishes playing is discarded. Useful for outbound calls where the recipient often says "Hello?" before the agent starts speaking.
***
## Extra agent config
An advanced JSON editor for any agent configuration keys not covered by the fields above. Changes here are merged into `agent_config` when the agent is saved. Use this for platform-specific settings not yet exposed in the UI.
Only keys the platform knows about are written on save. Unknown keys are dropped. Check the [API reference](/api-reference/agent/create) for a full list of accepted fields.