Floating Launcher: a chat button on every page
The Floating Launcher is a round chat button that stays in the corner of every page. Visitors click it and a chat window opens. You add it once and it shows up on every page of your site.
A round chat button sits in a corner of every page. Clicking it opens a chat window above the page.
What your visitors will see
- A small round chat button in a corner of the page, bottom right unless you choose another corner.
- When they click it, a chat window opens above your page. They type a question and get an answer.
- They can close the window with the X, or make it bigger.
- They can drag the button somewhere else. It stays where they leave it.
Add it to your site
There are four steps. Step 2 is a small tool: you click what you want, and it writes your snippet for you.
Step 1: Get your key
Open the dashboard, go to Hubs » Configure » Security, and create a publishable key. Then add your website address to that key, so it only works on your site. A publishable key is safe to put on your page. More in API keys.
Step 2: Choose your look and copy your snippet
Click the corner you want. Switch the options you like. Your snippet below changes as you choose. Every picture shows what your visitors will see.
Optional. Leave it empty to use the name set up in the dashboard.
Optional. The full URL of an image, starting with https://. It appears in the picture.
Light unless you choose Dark. The chat window does not follow your visitor's device setting by itself. If your site switches between light and dark, ask your developer to pass the matching one.
Bottom right. This picture changes as you choose.
This is starter code. It already works. Add anything else we support whenever you need it. Every option we support is in the full table below, and each one can go inside the snippet next to the others.
- YOUR_PUBLISHABLE_API_KEYYour publishable key from step 1.
Lines that start with // are switched off and change nothing. To use one, delete the // and put in your own value, or fill the matching box above.
- YOUR_TITLEThe title at the top of the chat. Without it, the name set up in the dashboard is used.
- YOUR_LOGO_URLThe full URL of your logo image, starting with https://.
<head>
<script src="https://cloud.rapidflare.ai/storage/v1/object/public/rapidflare-embed-sdk/latest/agent.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<script>
window.rapidflare.init({
apiKey: 'YOUR_PUBLISHABLE_API_KEY',
display: {
type: 'floating-launcher',
position: 'bottom-right',
// titleText: 'YOUR_TITLE', (optional: delete the // at the start and put in your own value)
// titleLogo: 'YOUR_LOGO_URL', (optional: delete the // at the start and put in your own value)
}
});
</script>
</body>Step 3: Paste it into your page
Paste the whole snippet into your site's HTML so it is on every page, just before the closing </body> tag. Then replace YOUR_PUBLISHABLE_API_KEY with your key from step 1. The chat button shows on every page that has the snippet.
Add the script line only once
The first line of the snippet, the one that starts with <script src=, loads Rapidflare. Put it on the page one time, even if you add more than one widget later. It has to come before the code under it.
Built your site with a website builder such as WordPress or Wix? Our website builder guides show where the snippet goes. Not sure? Send the snippet to the person who edits your site.
Step 4: Check that it works
Open your site in a private window. The round chat button should be in the corner you picked. Click it to open the chat window.
Every option
Everything this widget accepts. A ✓ means the builder above already sets it. Anything else you can add by hand. Options in the first table go inside display: { ... }. Settings in the second table go next to apiKey.
Inside display: the look and behavior
| Option | In the builder | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
position | ✓ | 'top-left' | 'top-right' | 'bottom-left' | 'bottom-right' | Where the launcher button is anchored. Default: 'bottom-right'. When omitted, the default launcher can be dragged and its position is persisted in localStorage. |
overlay | Add by hand | boolean | If true, shows a dimmed backdrop and locks page scrolling while the popup is open. Clicking outside the popup closes it either way. Default: false. |
fullWidthOnMaximize | Add by hand | boolean | If true, maximizing the popup fills the full available width up to the same margin it already keeps from the viewport edge, instead of capping at a fixed size. It stays within that margin rather than going fully edge-to-edge (unlike inline-trigger) because it's a floating, corner-anchored surface — flush with the viewport would look glued to the edge rather than intentionally widened. Default: false. |
trigger | Add by hand | string | HTMLElement | SVGElement | CSS selector or DOM element for your own button that opens the widget. If provided, the default launcher is hidden and this element is the trigger. If omitted, the default trigger is shown. |
dragContainer | Add by hand | string | CSS selector. When provided, the floating bubble is constrained to drag within this element's bounds and snaps to its four corners. Falls back to viewport-scoped drag if the selector matches nothing. |
titleText | ✓ | string | Optional panel header title. When omitted, the header shows only close and maximize/minimize controls (no hub fallback). |
titleLogo | ✓ | string | Optional panel header logo URL. Same opt-in behavior as titleText. |
| More options | Add by hand | — | This table lists only floating-launcher display properties. Shared init() parameters—apiKey, theme, userId, onLoad, and the rest—apply to all modes and are documented in Shared configuration. |
Next to apiKey: settings for the whole widget
| Setting | Required? | Type | Default | In the builder | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
apiKey | Yes | string | - | Add by hand | |
id | Optional | string | - | Add by hand | |
userId | Optional | string | - | Add by hand | |
theme | Optional | 'light' | 'dark' | 'light' | ✓ | |
prompt | Optional | string | - | Add by hand | |
autoSubmit | Optional | boolean | false | Add by hand | |
context | Optional | object | - | Add by hand | |
conversationId | Optional | string | - | Add by hand | |
onLoad | Optional | function | - | Add by hand | |
onOpen | Optional | function | - | Add by hand | |
onClose | Optional | function | - | Add by hand | |
onError | Optional | function | - | Add by hand | |
doNotTrack | Optional | boolean | false | Add by hand |
If something does not work
| What you see | Why it usually happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| No chat button appears | The snippet is not on the page yet | Check the snippet is in the part of your site that shows on every page, then see the next row. |
| Nothing changed after you pasted the snippet | The page was not published or saved, or your site is still showing an older copy of it | Publish or save the page. If your site has a caching or speed plugin, clear its cache. Then open the page in a private window. |
| The chat button shows on one page only | The snippet was pasted into a single page | Move it to the part of your site that shows on every page, often called the footer. |
| The chat opens but shows an error instead of answers | The snippet still says YOUR_PUBLISHABLE_API_KEY, or your website address is not on the key's allowed list | Put your own key in the snippet. Then check your website address is on that key in the dashboard. See API keys. |
| Two chat buttons | The snippet was pasted twice | Keep one copy. |
| A change you made in the dashboard does not show yet | Browsers keep the agent's settings for up to an hour | Wait an hour, or open your site in a private window to see it now. |
For developers: every setting
Everything below is for the person who edits your site's code. If you only want the widget on your page, the steps above are all you need. The full list of options is in the table above.
Identifying your users
Rapidflare cannot see your site's login state. The widget runs in its own frame and never reads your session, cookies, or SSO. Whether a conversation is attributed to a person is decided entirely by the userId you pass to init().
| On your page | What to pass | How the conversation is recorded |
|---|---|---|
| Visitor is signed in | userId: their id, email recommended | Stored under that id, so you can filter and sort by user in Home » History |
| Visitor is signed out | Leave userId out | Stored under an anonymous id we generate for that browser |
<script>
window.rapidflare.init({
apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
// Signed in: their id. Signed out: leave the key out entirely.
...(currentUser ? { userId: currentUser.email } : {}),
display: { type: 'floating-launcher', position: 'bottom-right' }
});
</script>
- Set it per visitor, never once for your whole site. A single hardcoded value (a support engineer's address,
admin@yourcompany.com) files every visitor's conversation under that one person, and your history and analytics become unreadable. This is the most common mistake we see. - Omitting beats inventing. The anonymous id we generate is derived from the visitor's browser and your site's host, so the same browser usually comes back as the same id and keeps its earlier conversations. A placeholder such as
guest@example.comoranonymousinstead merges every signed-out visitor into one user. userIdis a claim, not authentication. We record it as declared by your page and never verify it. Don't treat it as an access-control boundary, and don't put anything secret in it.- Changing it starts a clean slate. The chat-history list lives in the visitor's browser, scoped per agent and
userId, and a conversation can only be resumed by the id that started it. So after a sign-in or sign-out, the panel no longer lists or resumes what the previous identity said. Reloading the page with the newuserIdis the simplest approach; if you callupdate({ userId })in place, do it when a new conversation starts.
Giving the agent page context
The agent answers better when it knows what page the visitor is asking from. Pass that in context:
<script>
window.rapidflare.init({
apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
context: {
referrerPage: { url: window.location.href, title: document.title },
ambient: 'Viewing the Enterprise plan. Trial ends in 3 days.'
},
display: { type: 'floating-launcher', position: 'bottom-right' }
});
</script>
Your page tells us that page—we don't guess it. The browser's own document.referrer is empty whenever the link carried rel="noopener noreferrer", the page was opened through window.open, or a referrer policy stripped it on a cross-origin hop, and it never carries a title at all. Reading it would give you a value that quietly disappears on the journeys you most want to see, so you pass what your page already knows.
referrerPageis the page the question is coming from. With the widget embedded in your site that is the page it sits on, as above.- Both fields are optional. Send
referrerPage,ambient, or both. - It travels with every message in that conversation, not just the first.
- It is stored with the conversation and shown in Home » History, so treat it as visible: put in what helps the agent answer, not credentials, payment details, or anything you would not show the visitor.
- Keep it short. A few lines is the intent. Everything you send is combined into a single block capped at 10,000 characters; past that the tail is cut and marked as truncated.
Changing it later. update({ context }) replaces the whole object rather than merging, so send every field you still want:
<script>
const ref = window.rapidflare.init({ /* … */ });
// Single-page app: the visitor navigated, so tell the agent where they are now.
ref.update({ context: { referrerPage: { url: window.location.href, title: document.title } } });
// Signed out, or moved somewhere the context no longer applies.
ref.update({ context: undefined });
</script>
Replacing ambientContext
ambientContext, the earlier flat string, still works: pass it to init() and it becomes context.ambient, with a one-time console warning. Prefer context for new integrations, and if you send both, context.ambient wins. It is honored at init() only—update({ ambientContext }) is ignored, so use update({ context }).
API
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
rapidflare.init(config) | Mounts the widget with the given config. Required: apiKey and display. Returns a ref object with id (string), open(), close(), maximize(), minimize(), update(partial), resetConversation(), destroy(), and config(). |
rapidflare.getInstances() | Returns an array of refs for all currently mounted widget instances. Each ref has id, open, close, maximize, minimize, update, resetConversation, destroy, and config. |
ref.open() | Programmatically open the panel. Most useful for imperative control flows or custom wrappers around an existing trigger element. |
ref.close() | Programmatically close the panel. |
ref.maximize() | Expand the panel to its wider view. |
ref.minimize() | Collapse the panel to its default size. |
ref.update(partial) | Updates a subset of options (e.g. theme, prompt, userId, display properties other than type) without remounting. display.type cannot be changed via update()—call destroy() then init() with a new type instead. |
ref.resetConversation() | Clears the current conversation and starts a fresh one in place, without remounting the widget. Use it to back a "New chat" control in your own UI. The panel stays open and keeps its config; only the conversation is discarded. |
ref.destroy() | Unmounts that widget instance and cleans up. Other instances are unaffected. Call before calling init() again for the same container if you need a different config. |
ref.config() | Returns the current config. |
Script loading and behavior
- Load the script only once per page. Put the
<script src=...>line in once, before anyinit()call. If you add more than one widget, keep that single line and add oneinit()call for each widget. - The loader script does not overwrite
window.rapidflareif it is already set. - There is no global
window.rapidflare.update()orwindow.rapidflare.destroy(); all per-instance control is through the ref returned byinit()(or refs fromgetInstances()). - Multiple instances: Each
init()call returns a separate instance. Callupdate(),destroy(), andconfig()on the returned reference, not onwindow.rapidflare. Usewindow.rapidflare.getInstances()to get all currently mounted instances. - If you call
init()before the runtime script has finished loading, your config is queued and applied automatically when the runtime is ready. - The widget keeps your agent's settings (colors, logo, header text) in the visitor's browser for up to one hour after the visitor first opens the page. A change you make in the dashboard can take up to an hour to appear for returning visitors. Open the page in a private window to see the latest version.
resetConversation()is a no-op if called before the runtime has loaded: the widget has not rendered yet, so there is no conversation to clear.
Script URL
This is the one script every widget needs. Add it once, before your init() call:
<head>
<script src="https://cloud.rapidflare.ai/storage/v1/object/public/rapidflare-embed-sdk/latest/agent.js"></script>
</head>
Load the Embed SDK from this URL (always the latest build—we do not publish or support pinning to older semver paths for this script):
https://cloud.rapidflare.ai/storage/v1/object/public/rapidflare-embed-sdk/latest/agent.js
If you need a fixed artifact for compliance, host a copy you control or coordinate with Rapidflare—do not rely on undocumented URL patterns.
Other ways to show the agent
Every widget type has its own page. Compare all of them or jump to another one.
The agent inside a page you own. Also where a search or an AI overview continues.
Your agent on your own domain, like ask.yourcompany.com. Nothing to install.