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HNS packages

An HNS package gives your agents custom calculation tools, written in Python by a developer, built around data imported from a file — typically a complex Excel workbook (catalogue, simulator, rate table).

Where a knowledge base helps the agent find text, and a skill gives it a method, an HNS package gives it calculated answers: "price of an order of 200 parts delivered on a given date by a given supplier" comes from a tool that queries the database, never guessed by the model.

Where packages come from​

A package is developed outside HocNota, in a separate project, with the Framework HNS framework — its guide (in French) covers the whole path, from creating the project to production. The developer writes:

  • the import steps: how to turn the source file (e.g. the Excel workbook) into data (e.g. a SQLite database);
  • the tools offered to the agent, with their parameters;
  • the instructions given to the agent;
  • optionally some initial data, used until a first import;
  • a reference question set to check results before delivery.

They produce a .hnpkg archive, which you import here.

Importing a package​

Manager → Tools → HNS packages → Import an archive: choose the archive and the storage space. The archive is fully checked before being stored (structure, no compiled code, consistent manifest).

Importing a package with the same name again adds a new version — the version number must then be incremented in the project.

Approval​

A new package only runs once approved by an administrator (Admin → Skills → HNS packages awaiting approval), who can first request an AI security review.

This approval is given once: later versions of an approved package are in service as soon as they are imported, with no further validation. So test an update before importing it. If something goes wrong, delete the faulty version in the package sheet: the previous one takes over.

Using a package​

In the pipeline editor, add a HNS node, choose the package, connect it to an agent and — to allow updating the data from the chat — to the Support document node, or pick a file from an external folder, read again at every launch and imported again if it changed. The data, its versions and the write rights are managed in that node. If the import script fails, the job stops with the script's message (see When the script fails).

Package sheet​

It shows the versions (in service, replaced, reviewed by an administrator), the expected files, the import steps, the tools and instructions, the pipelines using it, and lets you try a tool on the package's initial data. A package used by a pipeline cannot be deleted; it can be disabled.

Security​

A package's code runs in HocNota's sandbox: no network access, no secrets, read-only file system, limited resources, and everything it writes is destroyed after each run. Tools cannot modify the data: only an import step, triggered by a file from an authorised writer or by a manager from the editor, produces a new version.