Skip to main content
Athena provides powerful workflow automation capabilities through two complementary systems: Agent Operating Procedures (AOPs) and Flows. These tools enable organizations to automate repetitive tasks, streamline complex processes, and build sophisticated trigger-based workflows that operate autonomously.

  • Agent Operating Procedures
  • Flows
  • Use Cases
Agent Operating Procedures (AOPs) are pre-configured, reusable AI workflows that automate complex, prompt-based tasks through intelligent, repeatable processes. AOPs transform standard operating procedures into executable AI workflows that can perform research, analysis, content generation, and decision-making tasks with minimal human intervention.AOPs are designed to handle tasks that traditionally require human judgment and expertise, such as conducting due diligence research, analyzing financial documents, generating compliance reports, or extracting structured data from unstructured sources. By encoding expert knowledge into reusable workflows, AOPs enable organizations to scale their operations without proportionally scaling headcount.

​
How AOPs Accept Inputs

AOPs use a special parameter syntax within their prompt templates to define dynamic inputs. When an AOP is executed, these parameters are automatically detected and presented to the user for input.Text Parameters allow users to provide free-form text input for names, descriptions, instructions, or any other textual data. For example, [[company_name|type=text]] creates a simple text input field where users can enter a company name.Asset Selectors enable users to select specific assets from their workspace, such as documents, spreadsheets, databases, or presentations. For example, [[financial_reports|type=assetSelector|filterType=document]] creates a selector that filters for document assets, allowing users to choose the relevant financial reports for analysis.Option Selectors provide predefined choices for consistent results. For example, [[analysis_depth|type=textOptions|options=Quick,Standard,Comprehensive]] creates a dropdown menu with three analysis depth options.These parameters make AOPs highly reusable. A single due diligence AOP can be used for hundreds of different companies by simply changing the input parameters, while the underlying analytical logic remains consistent.

​
Key Features of AOPs

AOPs provide several powerful capabilities that make them ideal for automating knowledge work:Dynamic Parameter System: AOPs use a sophisticated parameter system that allows them to adapt to different scenarios. Parameters can be simple text inputs, asset selectors that reference specific documents or databases, or option selections that guide the workflow’s behavior. This flexibility means a single AOP can be reused across hundreds of similar tasks with different inputs.Multiple Execution Modes: AOPs can be executed through various interfaces including direct API calls for immediate results, asynchronous API mode for long-running tasks, chat integration for interactive execution with human oversight, and SDK integration for programmatic access from custom applications.Custom Agent Configuration: AOPs can leverage Athena’s suite of agents or create custom agents with research tools for web search and document analysis, content creation tools for generating reports and presentations, data processing tools for database queries and spreadsheet manipulation, and communication tools for email composition and notifications.