4 Easy Steps to Build an Ai-Powered Support Bot That Knows Your Docs

1. Start with the Appsmith AI Chat Template

   We have a pre-built AI Chat template that makes creating your support bot easy. This includes

   1. Custom widget for chat window.
   2. Appsmith AI integration.
   3. Local device memory of chats.
   4. Enable limits on the number of responses

   The template comes with a default prompt designed for conversational AI, which we’ll optimize for support bot functionality later.

2. Generate a PDF from Appsmith Docs

   Next, we need to generate a PDF of Appsmith's documentation that the AI will use as context. We’ll use the sitemapExport tool for this. It is a simple CLI tool I built to extract, cleanup, format, and save all of the pages in a sitemap (or RSS feed) into a single document. The command is used with various flags like this:

   ./sitemapExport --url="https://docs.mysite.com/sitemap.xml" --css=".theme-doc-markdown" --outputName="supportdocs" --outputType="pdf" --format="md"

   • URL - the URL for the sitemap.xml or RSS feed to crawl
   • CSS - the CSS selector for the content to extract
   • outputName - the name of the file to output
   • outputType - the type of file to output (json, txt, md, pdf, jsonl)
   • format - the format of the content in the file (text, md, HTML)

   In this case, the command will generate a PDF named supportdocs.pdf, which contains all the documentation from the site. This will help the AI respond with accurate and contextual information. This command is pretty fast - I generated a pdf of the Appsmith docs site in about 25 seconds.

3. Modify the Appsmith AI Datasource Integration

   Now, let’s integrate the documentation PDF into the AI datasource.

   1. In Appsmith, open the AI Chat app you forked from the template.
   2. Go to Datasources, select the Appsmith AI datasource, and open the settings.
   3. Attach the supportdocs.pdf by using the Attach File option. This will enable the AI to access the documentation as it responds to users.

   

   Note that you can add multiple files including forum posts, code samples, KB articles, blog posts, tutorials, etc. Plus, these files can be selectively added to the AI requests when you need them.

4. Update the Prompt for the Support Bot

   The template comes with a basic prompt that reads:

   Below is a new message from the user, and a history of your chat with them. Review the history and the new message, then reply as the system to continue the conversation. 
   # NEW MESSAGE:
   {{inp_userPrompt.text}}
   # CHAT HISTORY
   {{chat.chatHistory}}

   We’re going to optimize this to act as an Appsmith Support Bot that can use the attached documentation.

   Updated Prompt:

   You are an AI support bot for the Appsmith platform. Using the attached Appsmith documentation, review the user’s new message and the chat history, then respond with the most accurate and helpful information. Include reference links to the documentation whenever possible. 
   # NEW MESSAGE: 
   {{inp_userPrompt.text}} 
   # CHAT HISTORY: 
   {{chat.chatHistory}}

   This will guide the AI to use the documentation for more accurate responses.

5. Test and Refine

   Now it’s time to test your support bot.

   1. Ask a few questions related to the your platform.
   2. See how the bot responds using the attached documentation.
   3. Tweak the prompt or attached data if the responses need improvement.

Conclusion

Additional Resources

• sitemapExport Tool
• AI Chatbot Template