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Knowledge is the set of website pages, files and notes your agent searches while it talks. When a customer asks about prices, hours, services or a policy, the agent searches this set first and answers from what it finds. If nothing comes back, it says it doesn’t have that detail to hand and offers to take a message. It won’t make one up. Open it at Agents → your agent → Knowledge. Every channel the agent answers on (website chat, phone and email) searches the same knowledge.
Facts belong in knowledge, not in the agent’s instructions. Your agent treats knowledge as more reliable than instructions: if the two disagree on a price, an hour, an address or a policy, it gives the knowledge answer. A fact typed into the instructions has no source, so you can only fix it by editing the instructions again. See Writing instructions.

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Source types

There are three ways to add knowledge, all at the top of the Knowledge page. If you entered your website while setting up the agent, it’s already in the list as your first source. Knowledge sources are unlimited on every plan. To add or remove sources you need the Owner or Admin role.

Website

What the crawl reads, its limits, and its error messages.

Notes & text

Filling the gaps your site leaves.

Files

Supported types and size limits.

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How a source is indexed

Whatever you add, WireDesk turns it into plain text and splits it into short passages of about 1,200 characters each. Each passage overlaps the next a little, so a sentence at a boundary isn’t lost. The passages are then indexed for search by meaning, not by exact keywords. When the agent needs a fact, it searches with a short phrase and gets back the five closest passages. Passages that are only a weak match are dropped. That’s why a short passage that answers a question directly usually beats a long page that mentions it once.
  • Notes are indexed as soon as you click Add text.
  • Websites and files are indexed in the background. The page checks every few seconds, so you don’t need to reload. A website usually takes a minute or two.

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Statuses

Each source in the list is in one of three states. If a source is still in progress after 30 minutes, WireDesk treats the job as interrupted and shows an error, such as “indexing was interrupted — remove this source and add it again”. A website may be retried automatically first, up to three attempts. The agent’s setup checklist shows the same thing on the agent’s Overview. The Knowledge indexed item reads “Indexing now — a minute or two” while sources are in progress, and “Answering from N sources” once they’re ready.

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The Sources list

Below the add buttons is the list of everything the agent has read, newest first. Each row shows the source’s name and its state:
  • A website shows the address you entered.
  • A file shows its file name.
  • A note shows “Pasted text”.
Click a ready source to look inside it:
  • Websites open as a list of the pages that were indexed, grouped by the first part of their path, with each page’s size. You can search the list, sort it by size, and untick pages to leave them out. Show the passages themselves switches to the raw passages. See Keep it current.
  • Notes and files open straight to their passages, numbered in order.
To remove a source, click the bin icon on its row and confirm with Remove. Its passages come out of the knowledge base straight away, and the agent stops answering from them. When at least one source is ready, a Test a question box appears above the list. Use it to see exactly which passages a question finds. See Test a question.

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Turning knowledge off

Whether the agent searches knowledge at all is a setting under How it talks: Knowledge — answer from your website & documents. It’s on for new agents. If you turn it off, the agent answers only from its instructions and actions, even if sources are listed here. See Remember callers and answer from knowledge.