A Lead Scout agent needs four things before it can work for you: a name and a goal, a source, the signals to watch, and an ICP that says who counts as a lead. Vetta asks for them in that order when you click New agent on the Agents page.

Step 1: Name and goal

Agent name: something you will recognise in lists, such as CFO Scout: Fintech EMEA
Agent's goal (optional): what it should do, in a sentence. For example: "Find CFOs at fintech companies in EMEA who show buying intent."
Business context (required): click Attach business context and pick the document that describes what you sell. The agent's AI uses it from the first message on. See Business context and AI Skills.

Create & continue saves the agent and moves on.

Step 2: Choose a source

"Where should this agent find leads?" offers:

Signals (intent), marked Recommended: track buying and engagement signals on LinkedIn. This is the full Lead Scout path described below.
Upload a list (CSV): start from a spreadsheet of leads you already have.
From Sales Navigator: capture leads from a Sales Navigator search with the Vetta Chrome extension.
Connect an inbound source (API / webhook): coming soon.

If the agent adds a signal-based Lead Scout to your plan, Vetta shows what changes before anything is charged.

Step 3: Choose your signals

Each keyword, person or page is its own signal. There are two groups:

Engagement signals (each needs something to watch):

Keyword engagement: people who engage with posts about topics you choose (for example month-end close)
Engaging with your market: people who engage with specific creators or voices
Competitor engagement: people who engage with your competitors' posts and pages
People engaging with you: who engages with the posts on your own profile
People engaging with your page: who engages with your company page posts

Buying events:

Recent job changes: people in your ICP who changed roles in the last 90 days
Hiring momentum: companies scaling their team
Hiring for roles: companies in your ICP with open job posts for roles you pick
Top 5% active profiles: the most active people in your ICP right now

An agent runs on between 5 and 20 signals.

Step 4: Confirm who counts as a lead

The ICP filters run the search and score every lead the signals surface. Each section can stay on "All" to skip it:

Job roles, with Moderate (also accept similar titles) or Strict (only these roles)
Industries, again Moderate or Strict
Company size, from 1-10 to 10000+ employees
Locations: company headquarters, or where the person is based
Excluded: service providers, freelancers and consultants; Open to Work profiles
Competitors / keywords to exclude

Set at least one of job role, industry, company size or location. Save & find leads runs the agent for the first time, and Preview leads shows a sample of what it found, each lead with the signal that matched. Launch agent opens the agent.

Changing signals and ICP later

Open the agent's Signals tab. The left side lists every signal with the leads it has found and when it runs next; the right side is Your ICP.

Edit signals opens a side panel: add or remove keywords, pages and profiles, add new signal types under Add a signal, then Save. Signals whose LinkedIn link cannot be found are listed at the top so you can replace them.
Edit ICP opens the same ICP sections as the setup.

Switching the agent on and off

Activate in the agent's header asks "Do you want to activate?" and offers Lead Scout, Sequence, or Lead Scout and the Sequence. Run Lead Scout alone while you review its first leads, then switch on the sequence when the messages are ready. Deactivate works the same way in reverse.

Key outcome

With a goal, the right signals and a clear ICP, the agent keeps a steady flow of qualified leads coming in. Next, see how to judge them in Reviewing your agent's leads.