Chatbot

The simplest way to build a conversational app with a model and a prompt

Chatbots are conversational apps where users interact with the model through a chat interface.

Use it for tasks that benefit from back-and-forth interaction but don’t require tool calls or a multi-step workflow—for example, building an internal Q&A assistant grounded in your team’s knowledge base.

Chatbots keep up to 500 messages or 2,000 tokens of history per conversation. If either limit is exceeded, the oldest messages will be removed to make room for new ones.

Configure

Write the Prompt

The prompt tells the model what to do, how to respond, and what constraints to follow. It shapes how the model behaves throughout the conversation, so think of it as defining a consistent persona rather than describing a one-off task.

Here are some tips for writing effective prompts:

• Define the persona: Describe who the model should act as and the tone it should use.

• Specify the output format: Describe the structure, length, or style you expect.

• Set constraints: Tell the model what to avoid or what rules to follow.

Create Dynamic Prompts with Variables

To adapt your chatbot to different users or contexts without rewriting the prompt each time, add variables to collect the necessary information upfront.

Variables are placeholders in the prompt—each one appears as an input field that users fill in before the conversation starts, and their values are injected into the prompt at runtime. Users can also update variable values mid-conversation, and the prompt will adjust accordingly.

For example, an onboarding assistant might use role and language to tailor its responses:

You are an onboarding assistant for new {{role}} hires. Answer questions about company processes and policies. Keep answers friendly and concise, and respond in {{language}}.

While drafting the prompt, type / > New Variable to quickly insert a named placeholder. You can configure its details in the Variables section later.

Choose the variable type that matches the input you expect:

Short Text

Accepts up to 256 characters. Use it for names, email addresses, titles, or any brief text input that fits on a single line.

Paragraph

Allows long-form text without length restrictions. It gives users a multi-line text area for detailed descriptions.

Select

Displays a dropdown menu with predefined options.

Number

Restricts input to numerical values only—ideal for quantities, ratings, IDs, or any data requiring mathematical processing.

Checkbox

Provides a simple yes/no option. When a user checks the box, the output is true; otherwise, it’s false. Use it for confirmations or any case that requires a binary choice.

API-based Variable

Fetches variable values from an external API at runtime instead of collecting them from users.

Use it when your prompt needs dynamic data from an external source, such as live weather conditions or database records. See API Extension for details.

Label Name is what end users see for each input field.

Generate or Improve the Prompt with AI

If you’re unsure where to start or want to refine the existing prompt, click Generate to let an LLM help you draft it.

Describe what you want from scratch, or reference current_prompt and specify what to improve. For more targeted results, add an example in Ideal Output.

Each generation is saved as a version, so you can experiment and roll back freely.

Ground Responses in Your Own Data

To ground the model’s responses in your own data rather than general knowledge, add a knowledge base.

Each time a user sends a message, it is used as the search query to retrieve relevant content from the knowledge base, which is then injected into the prompt as context for the model.

Configure App-Level Retrieval Settings

To fine-tune how retrieval results are processed, click Retrieval Setting.

There are two layers of retrieval settings—the knowledge base level and the app level.

Think of them as two consecutive filters: the knowledge base settings determine the initial pool of results, and the app settings further rerank the results or narrow down the pool.

• Rerank Settings

  • Weighted Score

    The relative weight between semantic similarity and keyword matching during reranking. Higher semantic weight favors meaning relevance, while higher keyword weight favors exact matches.

    Weighted Score is available only when all added knowledge bases are indexed with High Quality mode.

  • Rerank Model

    The rerank model to re-score and reorder all the results based on their relevance to the query.

    If any multimodal knowledge bases are added, select a multimodal rerank model (marked with a Vision tag) as well. Otherwise, retrieved images will be excluded from reranking and the final output.

• Top K

  The maximum number of top results to return after reranking.

  When a rerank model is selected, this value will be automatically adjusted based on the model’s maximum input capacity (how much text the model can process at once).

• Score Threshold

  The minimum similarity score for returned results. Results scoring below this threshold are excluded. Use higher thresholds for stricter relevance or lower thresholds to include broader matches.

Search Within Specific Documents

By default, retrieval searches across the entire knowledge base. To restrict retrieval to specific documents, enable manual or automatic metadata filtering.

This improves retrieval precision, especially when your knowledge base is large or contains content for different contexts.

For creating and managing document metadata, see Metadata.

Process Multimodal Inputs

To allow users to upload images, audio, or documents when using the app, select a model that supports the corresponding modalities and enable specific file types—Vision, Audio, and Document.

You can quickly identify a model’s supported modalities by its tags.

Click Settings under Vision to configure how files are accepted and processed. Upload settings apply across all enabled file types.

• Resolution: Controls the detail level for image processing only.

  • High: Better accuracy for complex images but uses more tokens

  • Low: Faster processing with fewer tokens for simple images

• Upload Method: Choose whether users can upload from their device, paste a URL, or both.

• Upload Limit: The maximum number of files a user can upload per message.

Chatbots also support optional features like conversation openers, follow-up suggestions, text to speech, speech to text, citations and attributions, content moderation, and annotation replies. See App Toolkit for details.

Debug & Preview

In the preview panel on the right, you can test your chatbot in real time. Select a model that best fits your task, type a message, and send it to see how the model responds.

After selecting a model, you can adjust its parameters to control how it generates responses. Available parameters and presets vary by model.

To compare outputs across different models, click Debug as Multiple Models to run up to 4 models simultaneously.

Publish

When you’re happy with the results, click Publish to make your app available. See Publish for the full list of publishing options.