---
title: Zendesk
summary: Connect a Zendesk account so your AI agents can read and triage support tickets, reply to customers, create tickets, and manage organizations under permissions you control.
category: integrations
slug: zendesk
---

## What Zendesk in Kronos lets your agents do

Once a Zendesk account is connected to Kronos, your agents can — within
the permissions you grant — work with your support tickets and
organizations the way you would in Zendesk:

**Read actions** (available when an agent has "Read only" or higher):

- Look up a specific support ticket by its number and read its details.
- List and filter your tickets (by status, requester, and more).
- Look up a specific organization and its details.
- List all organizations in your account.
- Count how many organizations you have.
- Read the connected account's profile.

**Write actions** (available only when an agent has "Read and write"):

- Create a new support ticket.
- Reply to a ticket by adding a comment.
- Create a new organization.
- Update an organization's details.
- Delete a ticket.
- Delete an organization.

You decide which agent gets which level, and you can switch any
permission off in one click without disconnecting the Zendesk account.

## Connecting Zendesk

A step-by-step walk-through with screenshots is at `/docs/zendesk`. The
short version:

1. Open Kronos → **Connect** in the sidebar → **Applications** tab.
2. Click the **Zendesk** card to open the detail dialog.
3. Enter your **Zendesk subdomain** — the part before `.zendesk.com` in
   your account's web address. If your help desk lives at
   `acme.zendesk.com`, type `acme` (you can also paste the full
   `acme.zendesk.com` and Kronos trims it for you).
4. Click the green **Connect** button.
5. You land on your Zendesk sign-in screen — sign in and authorize
   Kronos to access your account.
6. You're sent back to Kronos at the Already connected tab with the new
   Zendesk entry pre-selected.

You can connect more than one Zendesk account; each appears as its own
entry with its own name.

## Telling connections apart

The Zendesk management page shows the connected account right under the
"Zendesk" title. This is how Kronos and you identify which Zendesk
account a connection represents.

If you connect more than one Zendesk account, each appears with its own
identifier. Optionally you can add a short personal note next to it (the
"Your note for this connection" field) — labels like "Support Desk" or
"EU Helpdesk" make it easier to scan a long list. The note is yours
only; agents always identify the account by the underlying details, not
by the note.

## Giving an agent access

On the Zendesk management page click **+ Add AI Agent**, pick the agent
from the dropdown, then choose:

- **Off** — the agent cannot touch this Zendesk account.
- **Read only** — the agent can look up, list, and read tickets and
  organizations, but cannot reply, create, update, or delete anything.
- **Read and write** — the agent can do all of the above plus reply to
  tickets, create tickets, and create, update, or delete organizations
  and tickets.

The same controls are available inside the AI Agent editor — scroll to
the **Connected Apps** section.

## Fine-grained overrides

Inside the permissions modal (the gear icon next to a Zendesk account in
the agent editor or on the Zendesk management page) you'll see the full
list of Zendesk actions grouped by **Read tools** and **Write tools**.
Toggle individual actions on or off to override the preset.

Common combinations:

- **Triage-only agent**: preset Read only, no overrides. Agent reads and
  summarizes open tickets but cannot reply or change anything.
- **Front-line reply agent**: preset Read only, override `Reply to
  ticket` ON. Agent can read tickets and answer customers, but cannot
  create or delete tickets or touch organizations.
- **Safe write agent**: preset Read and write, override `Delete ticket`
  and `Delete organization` OFF. Agent can create and update everything
  but can never delete.
- **Full assistant**: preset Read and write, no overrides.

Click Save to apply. Changes take effect on the next message the agent
processes.

## Multiple Zendesk accounts on the same agent

If an agent has access to two or more Zendesk accounts (e.g. a US desk
and an EU desk), the agent picks which account to use on every action
based on context. When the request is ambiguous ("reply to that
ticket"), the agent will ask which Zendesk account to use.

You can cut ambiguity by turning the agent's access to one of the
accounts off, or by adding obviously distinct notes to each
("Support Desk" vs "EU Helpdesk").

## When something goes wrong

- **"Needs reconnect"** badge — Zendesk revoked or expired the
  connection. Open `/app/connect`, click Zendesk, re-enter your
  subdomain if asked, and walk through Connect again. Permissions are
  preserved.
- **Agent says "I can't reply to that ticket"** — that agent's
  permission preset is Off or Read only without the `Reply to ticket`
  override. Open the permissions modal and adjust.
- **Agent says the connected app is temporarily unavailable** — Zendesk
  or the connection had a transient hiccup. Ask the user to retry in a
  moment. If it persists, check the Zendesk management page for a
  "Needs reconnect" badge.
- **Connection won't start** — double-check the subdomain. It's just the
  name before `.zendesk.com` (for `acme.zendesk.com`, that's `acme`).

## Privacy

Kronos does NOT store the content of your Zendesk tickets. Each time an
agent uses a Zendesk action, it fetches just-in-time from Zendesk
through the connection, uses what it needs to complete the task, and
discards the result. The audit log records that the action happened
(which agent, which action, when, and whether it succeeded), but not the
ticket contents.

When you disconnect Zendesk or cancel your Kronos subscription, the
connection and all per-agent permissions are deleted immediately.