How to Build a Custom AI Agent for Proposal Review

A custom Agent is useful when you keep asking an assistant to follow the same method. For a small studio, that might mean checking every supplier proposal for scope, price, delivery dates, support, and unanswered questions.

In Clanker Workspace, you can create a personal Agent with its own instructions, reference knowledge, Skills, and selected Tools. Start with a role whose output you can judge. A proposal reviewer is a good example because you can compare every conclusion with the source proposal.

Define the deliverable before the personality

Suppose fictional Cedar Studio receives a website proposal. The owner wants a review memo covering included work, exclusions, stated payment terms, delivery assumptions, and questions to resolve before acceptance.

The Agent's job is to prepare that memo. Its name and tone can help colleagues recognize the role, but the useful part is the method it follows. Write down what an acceptable result contains before choosing a personality.

Open My Agents and create or customize an Agent. Name it Proposal Reviewer and give it a specific description. Keep the role reusable across proposals; put changing client details and the current proposal in the relevant Project.

Add instructions you can test

This is a starting instruction set for the fictional role:

Review supplier proposals against the approved checklist.

Return a memo with:
1. Included work and explicit exclusions.
2. Stated price and payment terms, preserving currency.
3. Delivery dates and their stated dependencies.
4. Missing or conflicting terms.
5. Questions for the owner to resolve.

Cite the source filename and section for each factual conclusion.
Treat a blank or unstated term as unknown.
Keep proposed dates separate from confirmed commitments.
Do not accept a proposal, contact a supplier, or authorize payment.
Ask for the proposal and checklist when either is missing.

Add the approved checklist as reference knowledge. A Skill can hold the reusable review procedure; selected Tools let the Agent perform the operations needed for the task. These are different parts of the setup. Writing “read our CRM” in instructions does not establish a connection or grant access to it.

Use the knowledge, Skills, and Tools guide to choose the right place for each item. For the first trial, use the capabilities needed to read source files and prepare the memo. Review the Agent's available operations and the Session approval mode.

When a method works across several examples, save it as a reusable Skill. This keeps the procedure available for another Agent without embedding a client's proposal into the method.

Test a proposal with a known answer

Use a fictional proposal containing these terms:

Ask the Agent to prepare the memo in a Session attached to that Project. Inspect its output against the table. If it invents included support or converts the launch month into a deadline, revise the instruction that governs missing terms and test again.

A second trial should deliberately omit the checklist. The Agent should ask for it instead of quietly inventing your purchasing criteria. This gives you evidence about how it behaves when a real request arrives incomplete.

Reuse the role without freezing old facts into it

Save the tested Agent and use it for the next proposal with a fresh Project and current files. Keep an approved procedure in the role; keep client-specific prices, contacts, and decisions with that client’s work.

Agent version history can help restore an earlier setup. Recheck the examples after changing its instructions, knowledge, Skills, or Tools. A role tested on file review needs a separate trial before it is used for a new external action.

You can share a reviewed Agent through the supported private sharing flow or publish a separate version to the Marketplace. Check what the recipient receives and review the content before sharing; use the team sharing guide for that next step.

Choose how work reaches the Agent

Begin with requests in Workspace Sessions. Once the role is reliable, a hosted Workspace Agent can also receive approved requests through a managed Clanker email address, or work on a Schedule where that fits the job.

A custom Agent is a saved role, not an automatic recurring worker. Linking an email address or configuring recurrence is a separate step with its own inputs, permissions, and usage. Keep the first role small enough that you can explain both what it does and what should make it ask for help.

Sources

• Build a custom Agent
• Agent knowledge, Skills, and Tools
• Choose an approval mode
• Workspace FAQ: custom Agents and sharing
• Vendor comparison starter