How Viber works
Understand the people, product areas, and terminology used in Botpress Viber.
Botpress Viber separates building, testing, deployment, and improvement into distinct areas. Understanding how those areas relate makes it easier to describe changes to Vibe and verify the resulting agent.
Viber, Vibe, and your agent
These terms refer to different parts of the experience:
| Term | Function |
|---|---|
| Botpress Viber | The conversational builder where you create, test, publish, and improve an agent. Viber is the short form used throughout these docs. |
| Vibe | The builder agent inside Viber. Vibe translates your requests into structured agent configuration and helps you refine it. |
| Your agent | The customer-facing agent you build and publish. It answers users through channels and acts through its configured tools. |
Application areas
The Viber navigation organizes work by function:
| Area | Function |
|---|---|
| Overview | Review the agent summary and manage its display name and avatar. |
| Preview | Have a conversation with the current working version before publishing it. |
| Build | Define what the agent knows, how it behaves, and which actions it can take. |
| Deploy | Configure the channels where users can talk to the published agent. |
| Monitor | Review tests and conversations, identify problems, and decide what to improve. |
Vibe remains available alongside these areas. You can describe a change conversationally, then open the relevant screen to review or refine the resulting configuration.
Build
The Build group contains the agent’s configuration:
| Screen | Function |
|---|---|
| Instructions | Rules that apply throughout conversations, organized into Identity, Communication, Memory, and Safety. |
| Playbooks | Reusable procedures for specific goals, multi-step tasks, or conditional behavior. |
| Knowledge | Websites, FAQs, files, and web results the agent can search when answering. |
| Tools | Integrations, HTTP requests, and MCP tools the agent can use to act in external systems. |
| Escalation | Conditions and procedures for handing a conversation to a person. |
Instructions and Playbooks define the agent’s behavior and when it should use Tools or Escalation. The agent searches its prepared Knowledge when that information is relevant to a conversation.
Deploy
The Deploy group contains Channels. A channel is where users talk to the published agent, such as Webchat or a connected messaging provider.
Channels are different from tools. A channel carries conversations between users and the agent. A tool lets the agent perform an action in another system.
Monitor
The Monitor group contains the evidence you use to improve the agent:
| Screen | Function |
|---|---|
| Conversations | Review conversations from Preview and connected channels. |
| Simulations | Run repeatable question and flow tests. |
| Gaps | Review identified weaknesses and send actionable corrections to Vibe. |
From request to published agent
Changes move through Viber in a consistent loop:
- Describe the desired result to Vibe or edit the relevant screen directly.
- Viber updates the working version of the agent.
- Test the working version in Preview or Simulations.
- Publish the verified working version.
- Users interact with the published version through connected channels.
- Review Conversations, Simulations, and Gaps, then refine the agent again.
Publishing does not create a second agent. It promotes the working version to the version used by connected channels. Later changes remain in the working version until you publish again.
Core distinctions
Keep these concepts separate when working in Viber:
- Vibe and your agent: Vibe builds and changes the configuration. Your agent uses that configuration in customer conversations.
- Instructions and Playbooks: Instructions are always-on rules. Playbooks are procedures for specific situations.
- Channels and tools: Channels carry conversations. Tools perform actions.
- Working and published versions: Preview and Simulations use the working version. Connected channels use the published version.
- Viber and Studio: Viber does not use Studio nodes, cards, or visual workflows. A Viber Playbook is not a Studio workflow.
- Viber and the ADK: Viber does not require a TypeScript project or the ADK development model.