Integrating Rapidflare AI Agent with your Discourse forum

This guide will help you connect Rapidflare to your Discourse community forum, so new topics get an answer automatically. This is an admin flow.

Prerequisites

• Discourse administrator access to your forum
• Access to the Rapidflare Admin Dashboard
• A Discourse account for the agent to post as (see Step 1)

How it works

When someone opens a topic in a category you have chosen, Discourse notifies Rapidflare, the agent answers from your knowledge base, and the reply is posted in that topic. Readers continue the conversation by mentioning the agent, and it remembers the earlier turns in that topic.

Unlike Slack and Discord, there is no app to install. You create an account for the agent on your own forum, issue it an API key, and paste a webhook address into your Discourse settings.

Step 1: Create the agent's account

The agent posts as a normal Discourse user, so it needs an account.

1. In your forum, go to Admin → Users and invite a new user (for example, acme-assistant).
2. Choose a name your community will recognize as the assistant. This name is what people will type to call it.
3. Open the new account in Admin → Users and set Trust Level to 4 (Leader).

Step 2: Create an API key

1. Go to Admin → Advanced → API keys and click New API Key.
2. Description — something that names the integration, so a future admin knows what the key is for.
3. User level — change this from All users to Single User, then choose the account from Step 1.
4. Scope — Global works. If you prefer a narrower key, use Granular and allow creating and deleting posts.
5. Save, then copy the key. Discourse shows it only once.

Step 3: Connect from the Rapidflare dashboard

1. In the Rapidflare Admin Dashboard, open your hub and go to Deployments.
2. Click the Discourse row.
3. Fill in:
   • Forum URL — for example https://forum.example.com
   • Bot username — the account from Step 1
   • API key — the key from Step 2
4. Click Connect.

Rapidflare checks the key against your forum and then shows you two values: a Payload URL and a Secret. Copy both — the secret is shown only once.

Step 4: Register the webhook in Discourse

1. Back in your forum, go to Admin → Webhooks and click Add webhook.
2. Payload URL — paste the URL from Step 3.
3. Content Type — leave it as application/json.
4. Secret — paste the secret from Step 3.
5. Under Which events should trigger this webhook?, choose Select individual events and tick Post is created under Post Events. Leave Send me everything alone — Rapidflare ignores every event except a created post.
6. Under Triggered Categories, add every category the agent should answer in.
7. Tick Active, then click Create.

Step 5: Try it

Post a new topic in one of your chosen categories, using an account other than the agent's. The agent posts once, when its answer is ready, so expect nothing in the topic until the reply itself appears.

To continue the conversation, reply to the topic and mention the agent by name:

@acme-assistant does this apply to version 6 as well?

Where the agent answers

Scope lives on the webhook, in Triggered Categories, and nowhere else. Rapidflare answers wherever your forum delivers a post, so changing which categories the agent covers means editing the webhook — there is no second list to keep in step.

The mention rule is separate and always applies: only the opening post of a topic is answered unprompted, and later posts have to mention the agent.

How the agent decides to answer

Changing your settings

Open the Discourse row in Deployments again to change the forum URL or the bot account. To change which categories the agent covers, edit Triggered Categories on the webhook instead.

Disconnecting

Click the Discourse row and confirm Disable. Rapidflare stops answering immediately and erases the stored credentials. You can then delete the webhook and revoke the API key in your forum.

Troubleshooting

The agent does not reply to a new topic. Work down the path the post takes:

1. Is the webhook Active? An inactive webhook has an empty delivery log — check Admin → Webhooks.
2. Did the forum send it? Open the webhook and look at its delivery log. Nothing listed means Triggered Categories excludes that category — add it there.
3. Did Rapidflare accept it? A delivery showing 200 was received. Anything else is covered below.
4. Who posted it? The agent never answers its own posts.

Replies are ignored. Only replies that mention the agent are answered. Check the spelling of the username — @acme-assistant2 is a different account, not a mention of @acme-assistant.

Replies appear but get flagged or hidden. The agent's account is probably below trust level 4. Raise it in Admin → Users.

The agent stopped mid-conversation. If a moderator moved the topic to a category that is not on your list, the agent stops answering there. Move it back, or add that category.

Discourse shows webhook errors. Open Admin → Webhooks, select the webhook, and read the delivery log. Redeliver replays a failed event once you have fixed the cause, so you can confirm without posting again.