Product Overview
Discourse User Guide
Here's how to use the Rapidflare AI Agent in a Discourse forum.
Introduction
After connecting Discourse, the agent joins your forum as an ordinary member. It has an account, a username, and it posts replies like anyone else — there is no separate chat window or command panel.
The agent works in the categories your administrator chose. In those categories it answers new topics on its own, and after that it answers when you call it by name.
How the agent behaves
| What you do | What the agent does |
|---|---|
| Open a new topic in a covered category | Replies with an answer, usually within moments |
| Reply and mention the agent | Answers, remembering the earlier exchange in that topic |
| Reply without mentioning it | Nothing — it stays out of the discussion |
| Post in a category it does not cover | Nothing |
Asking a question
Open a topic the way you normally would. There is no command to learn and no special format — write the question as you would to another member.
The agent posts once, when the answer is ready. Nothing appears in the meantime, so a topic is never left holding a half-finished post. Answers cite the documentation they came from, so you can follow a link to the source.
If the question could go more than one way, the agent asks before answering. It lists the choices in its reply; pick one and reply in the topic, mentioning the agent, and it continues from there.
Continuing the conversation
The agent treats a topic as one conversation. To follow up, reply in the same topic and mention the agent by username:
@acme-assistant does that apply to version 6 as well?
It remembers what was already said in that topic, so you can ask a short follow-up rather than repeating the background.
Why the mention is required
A topic is a room full of people talking to each other. If the agent answered every reply, it would interrupt conversations that were never addressed to it. Mentioning it is how you say the question is for the agent.
Mentions are not case-sensitive, but the username must match exactly. @acme-assistant2 is a different member, not a mention of @acme-assistant.
What the agent can do
- Search and answer — searches your documentation and knowledge base and answers in the topic, with links to what it used.
- Carry context — within a topic it keeps the earlier turns, so follow-ups work.
- Read the topic, not just its own turns — posts it was never called into still count, so “answer this one too” or “list everything I asked” work.
- Say when it does not know — if the answer is not in the knowledge base, it says so rather than guessing.
What it does not do yet
- It does not hold a very long topic whole. Past a point the oldest posts fall outside what it carries.
- It does not carry memory between topics. Each topic starts fresh.
- It does not follow a topic that moves. If a moderator moves the topic to a category the agent does not cover, it stops answering there.
- It does not see branches separately. In a forum with nested replies, parallel branches of one topic share a single conversation.
Which categories are covered
That is up to your forum administrator, who chooses the categories on the webhook that connects the forum to Rapidflare. If the agent is silent where you expected help, that category is most likely not on the list — ask an administrator to add it.
Related
- Connecting Discourse — the administrator setup guide