This guide explains how to enable and use Ask Discourse.
Required user level: Administrator
ask.discourse.com houses our AI agent that can search through our documentation and answer many common questions or issues related to Discourse.
Features
Features will vary depending on whether Ask Discourse is accessed via chat or from the site. On the site Ask Discourse, it uses PM to start a conversation with the agent, the same experience as AI bot.
AI agent searches and reads through Meta topics and documentation
Selectable New Question, pre-set questions or type any question
Recent conversations
View all questions asked
Change account settings
Change fonts and appearance
Copyable responses
Like or dislike responses
Invite users to join the conversation
Log-in via Meta user profile
Enabling Ask Discourse
Anyone can visit ask.discourse.com for help. No additional configuration is needed.
Access via chat
When enabled only admins and moderators will have access to chat with the agent.
On Discourse-hosted sites, the Ask Discourse chat bot is automatically enabled for trial sites. When enabled, the bot will automatically appear in staff members’ chat as discourse_ai (Discourse Helper Bot). The only prerequisite is that chat is enabled on the site.
Ensure chat is enabled on the site (navigate to /admin/plugins and check Chat enabled)
The bot will automatically start a chat conversation with recently active staff members
You can also start a new conversation with discourse_ai via chat
While this feature uses elements of Discourse AI, you do not need to install and enable the plugin.
Technical FAQ
Why do I see discourse ai as an admin user on my site?
Enabling access to Ask Discourse via chat requires the AI agent to have admin access. It does not act on its own and is not looking through your site content.
How does Ask Discourse work?
The AI agent uses tool calls to read and search through site settings, Meta topics, and documentation to answer questions to the best of its knowledge.
Are there plans to expand its availability?
Currently, we are experimenting with Ask Discourse. In the future, we may make it default accessible on all sites or entirely change the way users interact with it.
Caveats
Generative AI can make mistakes, please flag them to help improve our engine. All content on this site is reviewed regularly by Discourse staff.
Was Ask Discourse recently changed so that when you are chatting with it, you are no longer composing “post replies”? I really appreciated being able to hit enter without sending my response.
You can hit enter without sending your response; you just need to hold down the shift button. Not necessarily my favorite UX either but it does work and is consistent with the way chatbots seem to work.
That’s an odd way to look at it. It’s kind of like saying, “You can press c to copy; you just need to to press ctrl first.”
But you are correct that other generic chatbots use enter to submit.
I wonder, though, who the users of the official ask.discourse.org really are. I have always assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that people use it to problem solve the software on their own sites in place of posting questions here. I’m constantly having to paste things like error messages and the like into longer responses.
In any case I do appreciate the service. I’ve used it for many problems I have encountered.
This guide explains how to enable and use Ask Discourse.
Required user level: Administrator
Features will vary depending on whether Ask Discourse is accessed via chat or from the site. On the site Ask Discourse, it uses PM to start a conversation with the agent, the same experience as AI bot.
When enabled only admins and moderators will have access to chat with the agent.