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Short answers to the questions that come up most often. For the full detail, follow the links to the related pages.

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Basics

A Plan is a process: a defined sequence of steps your agent follows. A Skill is knowledge it applies, such as a framework, a policy, or a tone of voice. The two can be used independently or together. A Skill can be assigned directly to an agent, or used to enhance a Plan by giving it extra knowledge to draw on. See Plans overview and Skills overview.
Users can follow a Plan as it runs. While a Plan is active, a progress panel shows each step by name and checks it off as the agent works through it. On narrow screens the panel appears as a collapsible progress summary under the agent’s reply. The Plan’s name also appears if you show it as a welcome card or in the prompt menu. What stays behind the scenes is the setup: the step instructions, handle, and description.
It matches what the user says against the Plan’s description, and reads the handle, the same way it chooses any other tool. You can also surface a Plan as a welcome card or in the prompt menu so users start it directly. Clear handles and descriptions make this reliable. See best practices.
You can do it in the Agent Management Studio or through the API. In the Agent Management Studio, you assign Plans and Skills to an agent as you build or edit them. Unlike Workflows, a Plan doesn’t need to be wrapped in a native MCP server first. You attach it to the agent directly, which keeps setup simpler. To do it programmatically, use the Agents API or the Agent Sessions API. See Create a Plan for the step-by-step, including assigning a Plan to an agent.

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Using Plans

Yes. Reopen it any time to change the steps, details, attached Skills, or assigned agents. Your changes apply to new conversations.
With it on, the agent follows every step in order and skips nothing. With it off, the agent can skip a step when the user already gave that information earlier in the conversation, so it doesn’t ask twice. See Create a Plan.
No. One Plan runs at a time. The agent finishes or exits the current Plan before it starts another.
Keep it short and focused. Aim for around 10 steps or fewer, and if a process needs more, split it into smaller Plans. See best practices.
You can attach up to 20 Plans to a single agent.
Not yet. Today a Plan guides the conversation and can search your knowledge. The ability to assign specific tools to individual plan steps, called tool-aware plans, is coming soon.
The usual causes are that the Plan isn’t assigned to the agent, or its description and handle aren’t clear enough for the agent to match it to the user’s request. A handle clash can also be the problem: if the Plan’s handle matches another Plan, Skill, or external tool on the same agent, the Plan can be dropped from the agent session entirely, so it never gets a chance to run. Check it’s assigned, confirm there are no name clashes across its Plans, Skills, and external tools, then make the description specific about when to use it and give it a clear, meaningful handle. See best practices.
Two things on the agent, across its Plans, Skills, and tools, share the same name or handle. That can cause errors or unpredictable behavior, so give each one a distinct name and resolve the warning before you rely on the agent. See best practices.

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Skills

A Skill is a focused piece of knowledge on a single topic, such as a framework, a set of guidelines, a tone of voice, or reference material. One to two pages is the sweet spot, and that’s where Skills are most effective. Based on industry standards, we recommend keeping a Skill under 8 to 10 pages (around 500 lines of text); if it grows beyond that, split it into separate Skills. See Create a Skill.
You can attach up to 20 Skills to an agent, and up to 20 Skills to a Plan.

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Migration

Plans are the way to build multi-step processes going forward. Workflows keep working for now, but we’re aiming to retire them on 31 July 2026, so move your processes across before then. See Migrating Workflows and Capabilities to Plans.
Capabilities move to Plans too. The simplest way is to copy a Capability’s prompt or its steps into the Plan Creator Agent and let it build the Plan for you. See the migration guide.
No. You can move one process at a time, and Plans and Workflows run side by side until you do. Aim to finish before Workflows are retired on 31 July 2026. If you’d like help, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

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Availability

Plans and Skills are rolling out gradually. If you don’t see them yet, talk to your Mindset AI contact.