# Dify guides

Step-by-step guides, appendices and a two-hour workshop on building AI agents in Dify for
education. Made by LeX Consultancy B.V. All examples play at Example College (fictional);
screens captured on Dify cloud, 20 September 2026.

The screenshots show the English Dify interface and the English build of each app.

Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (documents, slides, images) and MIT (scripts), see LICENSE.md.
Owner and contact: Guido van Dijk, guido@l-e-x.nl.

## Contents

| Folder | Title | For whom | Size |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 01-workflow | Building in Dify: from workflow to agent | Beginners | 22 pp. |
| 02-agent-knowledge-base | Building in Dify: an agent with its own knowledge base | Beginners, sequel to 01 | 22 pp. |
| 03-school-communication | Dify for school communication: parent letter, school news, reception | Communications teams | 36 pp. |
| 04-agent-console | Building in the Agent Console: the Test week planner (agent with file, tool and sandbox) | Form tutors, ICT coordinators | 27 pp. |
| 05-transcription-tool | Building in Dify: from recording to minutes | Departments, teams | 30 pp. |
| 06-inclusive-materials | Building in the Agent Console: the Materials check (UDL, custom search tool for open educational resources) | Teachers, support coordinators | 26 pp. |
| 07-school-news-with-checks | School news with checks: self-critique and gatekeeper, sequel to 03 | Communications teams | 26 pp. |
| 08-chatflow-study-coach | Study coach biology Year 9: Chatflow with four routes, memory and a teacher in the loop | Teachers | 46 pp. |
| 00-workshop | Facilitator guide for the workshop AI Agents with Dify (2 hours): programme, formats, pitfalls per block | Facilitators | 8 pp. |
| 00-presentation | Presentation for the workshop: PDF, source of the slides and speaker notes | Facilitators | 22 slides |
| 00-design-patterns | Five design patterns for AI agents and how to build them in Dify | Everyone | 5 pp. |
| 00-design-card | Design card: one A4 to design your app before you click; in examples/ the filled-in card of each of the eight apps | Everyone | 1 A4 + 8 examples |
| 00-ai-tools | AI tools in education: what is already in school, what is allowed (GDPR, AI Act), the EU competence frameworks | Everyone | 9 pp. |
| 00-self-hosting | Self-hosting Dify: the Community Edition with Docker on Windows, Mac and Linux, and what changes for a school server | IT, curious builders | 8 pp. |

Every guide has a green "Your choice" box per step (what you replace with your own material,
style or prompt) and a closing chapter "Make it yours" with adjustments, assignments and a checklist.

## What each app is for

Every guide builds one app. This is what they are meant for and when you choose which.

| App | What it does | For whom | Kind | Choose this if |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Text at level (01) | Rewrites a text for a chosen audience or reading level | Teachers, communications | Workflow | You want to learn what a workflow is: fixed steps, one input, one output |
| School guide assistant (02) | Answers questions from parents and students out of the school guide, with sources | Reception, form tutors, parents | Agent with knowledge base | You have a document that keeps getting the same questions |
| Parent letter assistant (03) | Writes a parent letter in the school's style, based on the style guide | Teams, heads of year | Agent with knowledge base | Letters must have one tone and one layout, written by different people |
| School news (03 and 07) | Turns one message into three versions: website, parent app and social; in 07 with a checker and a gatekeeper that rejects what breaks the rules | Communications officers | Workflow | You want to see how an app checks itself before something goes out |
| Test week planner (04) | Makes a study plan for the test week with a student and delivers Excel and a calendar file | Form tutors, students (after an impact assessment) | Agent Console | You want to see what an agent can do that a workflow cannot: decide how, and make files |
| Transcription tool (05) | Turns a recording of a meeting into minutes with decisions and action points | Departments, teams | Workflow with tool | You want a file as input and a tool (speech to text) in a workflow |
| Materials check (06) | Assesses learning material for accessibility (UDL), makes versions for teacher and student and searches for open educational resources | Teachers, support coordinators | Agent Console with custom tool | You want to make your own tool out of a website with an API |
| Study coach biology (08) | Helps a student with explanations, hints and planning on ecology; passes personal questions to the teacher | Teachers, students (after an impact assessment) | Chatflow | You want a conversation with routes, memory and a human in the loop |

The order is also a learning path: 01 and 02 in the first hour of the workshop, 03 and 07 when you want to help a team, 05 and 08 when you want to serve a subject, 04 and 06 when you want to know what the Agent Console adds.

## Example apps

The apps are live to try out:

- Text at level (01): https://udify.app/workflow/VHWboGL9462eA1KI
- School guide assistant (02, with the Reception mode from 03): https://udify.app/chat/6Y6WnP0m5Z3jSHRs
- Parent letter assistant (03): https://udify.app/chat/oB2H2mLaoKR6d4IC
- School news (03 and 07): https://udify.app/workflow/E2CHtVPKe3PLg7GF
- Test week planner (04): https://udify.app/agent/x0yjuGoRIVdZaVZe
- Transcription tool (05): https://udify.app/workflow/EPAc3PPeD3E4764l
- Materials check (06): https://udify.app/agent/BIKJSPHj1JnCRzAp
- Study coach biology (08): https://udify.app/chat/mgvtZPbDVAIp5gbh

## Installing the apps in your own Dify

Every Studio app is also in its guide's folder as a file: `<name>.dify.yml`. That is Dify's DSL
export. This is how you put it in your own workspace (online or self-hosted):

1. Download the `.dify.yml` file from the folder.
2. In Dify go to **Studio**, click **Create** and choose **Import DSL file**.
3. Drag the file into the window and click **Create**.
4. At every LLM step pick your own model (the export refers to gpt-5-mini via OpenAI) and under
   **Knowledge** attach your own knowledge base; that does not travel with the file. Create it
   first with the sample document from the same folder (guide 02, steps 1 to 5).
5. **Publish**.

The files contain no keys. An Agent Console app (04, 06) is imported the same way, but from the
**Agents** page (**Create**, **Import DSL file**). An agent export lists the uploaded file but
does not contain it: after importing, upload the CSV or PDF from the guide's folder again under
**FILES**. For 06, first create the custom tool (Integrations, Swagger API as Tool, schema from
`oer-search.openapi.json`) and add it under **TOOLS**.

| File | Guide |
| --- | --- |
| 01-workflow/text-at-level.dify.yml | 01 |
| 02-agent-knowledge-base/school-guide-assistant.dify.yml | 02 (including the Reception mode from 03) |
| 03-school-communication/parent-letter-assistant.dify.yml | 03 |
| 03-school-communication/school-news.dify.yml | 03 and 07 (version 2, with Checker and Gatekeeper) |
| 04-agent-console/test-week-planner.dify.yml | 04 (Agent Console; upload exam-timetable-example.csv again) |
| 05-transcription-tool/transcription-tool.dify.yml | 05 |
| 06-inclusive-materials/materials-check.dify.yml | 06 (Agent Console; recreate the OER search tool, upload the PDF again) |
| 08-chatflow-study-coach/study-coach-biology.dify.yml | 08 |

## Building or editing yourself

Every folder has the same structure:

    guide-*.md            source (edit this)
    screenshots/          screenshots, numbered in order
    build.py              makes .html, .pdf and .docx from the .md:  python3 build.py

`python3 _tools/build_all.py` builds everything at once; `python3 00-presentation/build.py`
builds the slides and the PDF of the presentation. `python3 _tools/make_samples.py` regenerates
the fictional sample documents. Needed: python3 with `markdown`, google-chrome and libreoffice.
The PDFs are in git next to the sources; HTML and Word you make yourself with build.py.

Formatting in the sources: numbered list = actions, table "What you type" = field values,
code block = type literally (label "Type in"), orange box = pitfall, green box = "Your choice"
(a blockquote that starts with **Your choice**). Layout and logo are in `_tools/build_guide.py`;
replace the logo with that of your own school or organisation.

The Dutch original of this series is at https://git.lexconsultancy.nl/guido/dify-handleidingen.
The same apps built in Microsoft 365 Copilot (Agent Builder, Dutch): https://git.lexconsultancy.nl/guido/copilot-handleidingen
The same apps built as Custom GPTs in ChatGPT (Dutch): https://git.lexconsultancy.nl/guido/chatgpt-handleidingen