Install and set up
From installation to an agent answering from curated context, in about half an hour:
- Install and set up — this page
- Your first entity — curate an object
- Preview and verify — see exactly what an agent will see
- Connect an agent — Agentforce or MCP, end to end
If you’d rather understand the model first, read Concepts.
Before you start
| Requirement | Notes |
|---|---|
| Salesforce org | Any edition that supports managed packages and Apex |
| System Administrator access | Needed to install and to assign permissions |
| Agentforce (optional) | Only needed for the Agentforce path — the extension package provides a default setup |
1. Install the package
Install ContextWorks from the install URL you were given. Choose Install for Admins Only. You grant access deliberately in step 3.
Install does two things and no more: it adds the ContextWorks app, and it assigns you ContextWorks Admin so you can open the app without going to Setup first. That assignment is best effort. If it doesn’t land, assign it by hand in Setup → Permission Sets.
Install writes no configuration. You choose what ContextWorks holds in the next step.
2. Open the Studio tab and choose a starting point
App Launcher → ContextWorks
On an empty org the app opens on a Welcome to ContextWorks dialog with two buttons:
| Button | What happens |
|---|---|
| Install sample configuration | Creates entities for Account, Opportunity, Contact, Lead and others, each with a starting set of fields and metrics, plus the General domain shared with every internal user. A working example to edit or delete. |
| Start empty | Nothing is written. Build your first entity from scratch — see Your first entity. |
ContextWorks records your choice, so the welcome doesn’t return.
IMPORTANT
An agent reads nothing until this step is done. Until the org holds at least one activated entity, the catalog is empty and agent calls answer “no context is available”. Wiring an agent into a fresh org? Do this first.
Changed your mind later? Admin → Danger has Reset to Defaults, which writes the same starting content, and Clear Configuration, which removes everything. Both are admin-only and make you type the action to confirm.
3. Assign the permission sets
Setup → Permission Sets → Manage Assignments
- ContextWorks Admin — you have it from install. Assign it to anyone else who should configure what agents see: admins, RevOps, and other operations users.
- ContextWorks Domain Manager — for someone who maintains one domain rather than all of them.
- ContextWorks User — everyone who uses agents: people talking to an Agentforce agent, people connecting an MCP client, any service-agent integration user, and whatever user an Apex or Flow call runs as. It grants the ContextWorks agent actions and read on ContextWorks’ own configuration records, nothing on your business data. Assigning it broadly is safe.
ContextWorks User is the whole of setup for someone who only reads context. The sample configuration creates the General domain, adds the default entities to it, and shares it with every internal user, so a new user can call an agent immediately. → Domain access
NOTE
None of the three touches data access. What a caller receives is always governed by their own object, field, and record permissions. See Security.
Two Setup checks are worth doing once, because ContextWorks cannot make them for you: the Domain object’s org-wide default should be Private, and Grant Access Using Hierarchies should be clear. → Sharing setup
4. Find your way around
The app has four tabs, each with a rail of pages down the left.
| Tab | Pages | What it’s for |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | Catalog, Entities, Briefs, Skills, Info, Domains, Metrics, Formulas, Filters, Enrichments, Change Log | Deciding what agents see |
| Deploy | Overview, Agentforce, MCP, Custom | Wiring agents up |
| Observe | Trends, Usage, Quality, Performance, Issues, Writes, Debug Logs | Watching it in production |
| Admin | Behavior, Limits, Governance, Import / Export, Access, Danger | Org-wide switches and tools |
Studio opens on Catalog: counts, your domains, recent changes and recent issues. Each tab remembers the page you were last on. Click Entities in the rail for the entity cards: object, API name, and counts of fields, related lists, metrics and enrichments. If you started empty, that page invites you to add your first.
5. Confirm it works
If you started empty, build your first entity before this step.
- Open Studio → Entities and click an entity card — say Account 360 — to open the builder.
- Click Preview in the builder header.
- Leave the record blank. Preview picks a recent record of that object.
You should see rendered markdown: curated fields grouped under headers, summary metrics, and related lists as tables.
If you see a payload, everything else is configuration. If you see an error, check that you hold ContextWorks Admin and that you have read access to the object.
What’s next
- Your first entity — curate an object before agents touch it.
- In a hurry? Skip to Connect an agent — the sample entities work as they are.