How To

Managing Profiles

Create and configure Agent Profiles to define agent work styles and capabilities

Overview

A Profile defines an Agent’s “work personality.” It contains a system prompt, associated runtime, capabilities (Skills and MCP Servers), and default configuration.

By creating multiple Profiles, you can define different Agent roles for different scenarios, such as “Code Reviewer” and “DevOps Engineer.”

File location

Profile files are stored in:

~/.sink/profiles/

Each Profile is a separate Markdown file:

~/.sink/profiles/
  ├── code-reviewer.md
  ├── devops-engineer.md
  └── research-assistant.md

Create a Profile

File format

A Profile consists of YAML frontmatter + Markdown body:

---
name: 'code-reviewer'
description: 'Code quality analysis and review'
runtime: claude-code
skills:
  - web-search
  - code-analysis
mcpServers:
  - filesystem
  - api-client
configDefaults:
  model: claude-opus-4
  mode: code
  temperature: '0.7'
metadata:
  disabled: false
---

You are an experienced code reviewer with deep expertise in software quality and best practices...

Frontmatter fields

Required fields

Field	Type	Description
`name`	string	Display name of the Profile
`description`	string	Description of the Profile
`runtime`	string	Runtime ID to use (e.g., `claude-code`)

Optional fields

Field	Type	Description
`skills`	array / object	List of Skills available for this Profile
`mcpServers`	array / object	List of MCP Servers available for this Profile
`configDefaults`	object	Default configuration for agent sessions
`executionModes`	array / object	Allowed execution modes (e.g., `individual` or `team`)
`subtaskProfiles`	array / object	Profile restrictions for subtasks
`overrides`	object	Additional parameters for specific MCP Servers or commands
`metadata.disabled`	boolean	Whether to disable this Profile

Markdown body

The Markdown body following the frontmatter is the system prompt for this Profile. The agent will follow this prompt to understand its role and work approach.

A good system prompt should include:

The agent’s role and background
Work principles and constraints
Thinking approach and output format
Security and ethical guidelines

Example:

You are an experienced code reviewer with deep expertise in software quality and best practices.

Your responsibilities:

1. Identify bugs, code smells, and maintainability issues
2. Assess severity and impact of findings
3. Provide actionable improvement suggestions

Work principles:

- Always prioritize correctness and readability
- Document all findings with clear explanations
- Report critical issues with highest priority
- Suggest concrete fixes, not just problems

Use Profiles in the Web UI

Select a Profile when creating a task

Open the Sink Web UI
Click the “New Task” button
Select a Profile from the “Profile” dropdown menu
Enter the task title and description
(Optional) If this Profile’s configDefaults has entries with candidates, you can override them here
Click “Create”

View Profile details

In the Web UI’s “Profile” menu:

Select a Profile
You can view:
- Frontmatter information (name, description, runtime, etc.)
- Available Skills and MCP Servers
- Full system prompt body

Common scenarios

Scenario 1: Create a Code Reviewer Profile

---
name: 'code-reviewer'
description: 'Code quality analysis and best practices review'
runtime: claude-code
skills:
  - code-analysis
  - test-runner
  - dependency-check
mcpServers:
  - filesystem
configDefaults:
  model: claude-opus-4
  mode: code
metadata:
  disabled: false
---

You are an expert code reviewer specializing in software quality.

Your tasks:

1. Analyze source code for correctness and maintainability issues
2. Check dependencies for outdated or problematic versions
3. Review configuration files for misconfigurations
4. Generate a detailed review report with severity ratings

Standards:

- Follow language-specific best practices and style guides
- Check for common anti-patterns
- Suggest concrete fixes with code examples

Scenario 2: Create a DevOps Engineer Profile

---
name: 'devops-engineer'
description: 'Infrastructure and deployment workflow automation'
runtime: claude-code
skills:
  - docker-ops
  - ci-cd
  - infra-check
mcpServers:
  - filesystem
  - shell-execution
configDefaults:
  model: claude-opus-4
  temperature: '0.3'
executionModes:
  - individual
metadata:
  disabled: false
---

You are an experienced DevOps engineer.

Your approach:

1. Inspection: Examine infrastructure configs, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment manifests
2. Analysis: Identify misconfigurations, missing safeguards, and optimization opportunities
3. Verification: Confirm findings with reproducible checks
4. Reporting: Document issues and remediation steps

Safety constraints:

- Only modify systems when explicitly authorized
- Never delete resources without explicit approval
- Document all changes for auditability

Scenario 3: Override a Profile in a workspace

In a specific workspace, create <workspace>/.sink/profiles/code-reviewer.md:

---
name: 'code-reviewer-internal'
description: 'Internal code review with stricter controls'
runtime: claude-code
skills:
  - code-analysis
  - internal-tools
mcpServers:
  - filesystem
  - internal-api
configDefaults:
  model: claude-opus-4
  temperature: '0.1'
metadata:
  disabled: false
---

[Internal system prompt...]

When creating tasks in this workspace, the local Profile will be used instead of the global user layer Profile.

Best practices

Clear naming: Profile names should clearly express the agent’s role (e.g., “Code Reviewer” rather than “Assistant 1”)
Specific description: In the description field, explain what scenarios this Profile is suitable for
Manage Skills: Only expose Skills that this Profile actually needs; avoid unnecessary capability spread
Safety constraints: Clearly declare operational boundaries and ethical constraints in the system prompt
Complete documentation: In the Markdown body, detail the agent’s thinking approach and output format to help the agent understand expectations
Reasonable configuration: Choose appropriate models and parameters based on scenarios (e.g., temperature affects creativity)
Test verification: After creating a new Profile, test it with real tasks to verify it achieves the desired effect

metadata:
  disabled: true

The Profile will be hidden and won’t appear in the task creation dropdown menu.

Delete a Profile

Directly delete the corresponding file:

rm ~/.sink/profiles/profile-id.md

Next steps

Learn about Skills: Add more capabilities to your Profiles
Configure Runtimes: Set up how agents are launched
Configure MCP Servers: Let Profiles access external tools
Create Tasks: Use Profiles to create real tasks

MCP Servers

Configure Model Context Protocol servers for agents

Configuring Runtimes

How to register and manage ACP Agent Runtimes