Agentforce: Key Terms in Plain Words

💬 In plain words: About twenty words carry most Agentforce conversations. Learn these once and every module reads faster. Each entry points at the module that covers it properly.

Concept

• Agent: Software that reads language, decides, and acts.
• Employee Agent: Serves staff, runs as the logged-in user.
• Service Agent: Serves customers, has its own user.
• Agent Router: Picks one subagent per message. (Was previously called the Topic Selector).
• Subagent: A specialist inside an agent. (Was previously called a topic).
• Action: Something the agent can actually do. There are five kinds.
• Tool: An action the model is allowed to choose for itself.
• Agent Script: The language agents are written in.
• Grounding: Feeding real Salesforce facts into the prompt.
• Prompt Template: A saved, reusable, grounded prompt.
• Data Library: The store of documents an agent can search.
• Retriever: The component that searches a library and returns relevant content.
• Chunk: One small piece of a document.
• Trace: The record of what actually happened in one turn.
• Einstein Trust Layer: The platform-level protections underneath.
• Digital Wallet: Where you track credit consumption.

🧠 Say the new words: subagent not topic, Agent Router not Topic Selector, Data 360 not Data Cloud. Old terminology dates your knowledge instantly.

🧭 360 Card — Key Terms in Plain Words

Rule: Learn the vocabulary before the features. Wrong terminology leads to misunderstanding platform architecture.

Gain: You communicate effectively with current standards and read Salesforce documentation accurately.

Price: Terminology evolves alongside platform updates, requiring periodic alignment.

Limits: Legacy user interface screens may still display terms like "Topic" in certain configuration areas.

Mirror — learning features first: You can describe what a feature does technically while still misnaming its core platform components.

Core Q&A

Q: What is the difference between an action and a tool?

🎯 Say this first: An action is a capability. A tool is an action the model is allowed to choose for itself.

A: They represent the same underlying logic viewed from two operational perspectives.

• Anything in the standard actions list executes deterministically because programmed logic called it.
• Anything exposed in reasoning actions is a tool. The model reads its metadata description and dynamically decides whether to execute it.
• The same underlying Apex class or Flow can serve as either, depending on which configuration list it is assigned to.
• That distinction is an architectural design decision regarding who controls step execution: deterministic logic or model reasoning.

📝 2-Minute Self-Check

Q1. A customer types five different phrasings of "my power is out". Which layer handles that?

A1. Routing. The Agent Router classifies all five phrasings to a single subagent.

Q2. Does Agentforce require Data 360?

A2. Only for grounding on unstructured document content. Record, Flow, and Apex grounding require no Data 360 setup.

Q3. What was a subagent called before April 2026?

A3. A topic. The Topic Selector is now termed the Agent Router.