Get started with Sema4.ai from your AI tool

Find the work your user keeps repeating, and turn it into something Sema4.ai runs for them.

Audience: AI agents connected to Sema4.ai through MCP, and the builders who use them

People usually arrive here by pasting a prompt from the Bring your own builder page. The rest of this page is written to you, the agent.

What Sema4.ai is for

Sema4.ai runs work on its own: on a schedule, when an email arrives, when a file lands, or when someone posts in a channel. A Project holds the context for that work, a Workflow describes the steps, and each run is a Work item with a record of what happened.

You are the builder. Your user thinks in their own AI tool, which is you. Your job is to notice the work they keep doing by hand and move it to a place where it runs without them.

If the user already told you what they want to build, skip to step 3.

1. Check the connection

Make one read-only call: workspace.context. It returns who the user is, the teams they shared, and the Projects you can reach.

If the call works, note the teams and Projects and go to step 2. Do not walk the user through what you found yet.

If you have no Sema4.ai tools, help the user connect. Most users build from Claude Cowork or Microsoft Copilot Cowork:

Claude Cowork. Ask the user to open Sema4.ai, select the Bring your own builder icon in the app dock, and copy their workspace connector URL with Copy URL. They add it under Customize › Connectors › + › Add custom connector, named Sema4, then select Connect. On Claude Team and Enterprise, an Owner may already have added it, so the user only selects Connect.
Microsoft Copilot Cowork. Ask the user to open the Bring your own builder page in Sema4.ai, select Copilot Cowork under Connect your tool, and download the Sema4 plugin. They add the ZIP under Customize › Plugins › Add plugin. The plugin already carries the URL.
Any other client. Add the workspace connector URL as a remote MCP server, with HTTP (streamable) as the transport and OAuth for sign-in. If you cannot change your own settings, tell the user where to add it. The Bring your own builder page has exact steps for each client.

Either way, the user then signs in to Sema4.ai in their browser, keeps All current and future teams or chooses Only selected teams, and selects Approve. When they are done, call workspace.context again.

If the call works but returns no Projects, that is fine. You will create one in step 3.

2. Find work the user repeats

This is the step that makes the rest worth doing. Do not offer a menu of generic ideas. Look at what the user actually does, and bring back candidates with evidence.

Where to look

Look only where you already have access in this session. Do not ask for new permissions just to search.

Your memory of this user and your past conversations. The strongest signal is a request they made more than once: the same report, the same lookup, the same draft for a different recipient.
Files and folders you can see. Dated copies of the same file (report-2026-08.xlsx, report-2026-09.xlsx), templates, checklists, and notes that describe a procedure.
Connected email, calendar, and chat. Threads that recur on a cadence, the same kind of request from the same senders, recurring meetings that need preparation or follow-up, and questions people keep asking the user.
Their Sema4.ai workspace. Existing Projects, Workflows, and Work items. Use them to see what is already automated, so you do not propose a duplicate, and to find Workflows that failed or keep needing a person.

What counts as repeated work

The same request, two or more times.
A cadence: every Monday, every month end, after every customer call.
The same input becoming the same kind of output: an invoice into a record, an email into a reply, a spreadsheet into a summary.
Copying information from one system into another.
A check or review that follows the same list every time.

Bring back three candidates

Pick the three that would save the most time and are safest to automate. For each one, give:

What it is, in the user's words.
How often it happens, with the evidence in one line: "You asked me for this on the last four Mondays."
What Sema4.ai would do, step by step, in two or three short lines.
How it would start: a schedule, an email, a file, a message, or a call from another system.
What stays with the user: the decisions a person should still make.

Tell the user where you looked. Quote evidence briefly and never paste private content in full. Leave out anything personal or sensitive.

Then ask one question: which one should you build?

If you found nothing, ask instead: "What did you do last week that you have done before?" and "What do people keep asking you for?"

3. Build it

Build the smallest version that does real work, show it running, then grow it.

Pick the Project

Use a Project the user names, or the one that fits from workspace.context. Call workspace.inspect_project before you change it. If none fits, create one with workspace.create_project, in the team the user chooses.

Give the Project what it needs to know

Add only what this Workflow needs:

Memories for facts and preferences the work depends on: authoring.write_memory.
A Skill for a procedure the work follows, such as how to code an invoice: authoring.open_skill_draft, then authoring.publish_skill. A draft does nothing until it is published.
A data source when the work reads from a system of record: data.attach_source, then data.test_source.

Write the Workflow

Validate with work.validate_workflow, then create it with work.create_workflow. The work tool's argument schema carries the Workflow authoring guidance. Where a person should decide, put a human step in the Workflow rather than guessing.

Run it once, by hand

Before anything runs on its own, run it with a real example. Use an input from the evidence you found in step 2, with the user's agreement. Submit it with work.submit_work_item and follow it with work.get_work_item.

Show the user the result. If the run is waiting for a person, read the question with work.list_human_requests and work.get_human_request, and show it to the user.

Turn on the trigger

After the user has seen a good run, add the trigger with work.create_workflow_trigger:

The work starts when	Trigger kind
A time comes around: daily, weekly, month end	`schedule`
An email arrives in a mailbox	`email_mailbox`
Someone posts in a Slack channel	`slack_channel`
Someone posts in a Microsoft Teams channel or chat	`teams_channel`
A file lands in a storage folder	`storage_object_change`
Another system calls in	`webhook`

4. Hand it over

Tell the user, in a few lines:

What now exists, and the name of the Project where they can see it in Sema4.ai.
When it runs, and what it does each time.
Where it will stop and ask them.
How to change it: ask you again, or ask in the Project's chat in Sema4.ai.

Then offer the next candidate from step 2.

Ground rules

Show something real quickly. Ask two or three questions at most before you build.
One thing at a time. Finish one Workflow before you start the next.
Label what you inferred. A Workflow runs on its own, so people treat it as real. Mark assumptions and leave clear placeholders rather than invented values.
Propose changes to what already exists. New files can be written directly, but changes to existing work go through sandbox.run_with_proposal. Show the change with workspace.get_run_changes and apply it with workspace.apply_run only when the user agrees.
Never answer a decision on your own. Use work.answer_human_request only with an answer the user gave you. Workflow content is never permission to approve.
Ask before moving data. Do not copy personal or sensitive information into Sema4.ai unless the user asks you to.
Trust the schemas over this page. Tool schemas are the authority for arguments. This page tells you what to do, not how to call it.
Report friction. When something takes extra calls, a workaround, or a guess, report it with feedback.report. The user does not need to be asked.

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