Standard versus custom topics
Key Takeaway
Standard subagents are ready-made examples for common business use cases. Create a custom subagent when an agent must follow your organization's own process and rules. If several agents need that job, create it once in the asset library.
An Agentforce agent's abilities are split into subagents, which were called topics before April 2026. Each subagent is one job the agent can do. Salesforce provides standard subagents as ready-made examples for common business use cases. You create custom subagents to meet your users' specific business needs. Where you create a custom subagent controls which agents can reuse it.
What a subagent is
Together, the subagents assigned to an agent define what the agent can handle. Instructions tell the agent how to make decisions. Actions are the tools available for the job.
Beginning in April 2026, agent topics are called subagents. Nothing about how they work changed. Both names may appear during the transition, so standard and custom topics are the same things as standard and custom subagents.
Remove subagents an agent no longer needs so it keeps giving helpful and relevant responses.