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Test a question runs the same knowledge search the agent runs mid-conversation and shows you what comes back. Use it to check a new source, and as the first step whenever the agent gives a wrong or vague answer. It tells you straight away whether the problem is the knowledge or something else. It’s on the Knowledge page, in the box headed Ask a question it should know. The box only appears once at least one source is ready.

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Run a test

1

Open Knowledge

Go to Agents → your agent → Knowledge.
2

Ask like a customer

Type the question the way a customer would. For example “how do I return an order?”, not “returns policy”. Click Search.
3

Read the results

Each result is one passage from your knowledge, with how closely it matches and which source it came from.

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What the results show

For each passage you get:
  • match N%: how close the passage is to your question in meaning. Higher is closer.
  • The source: the page title (or its address, if it has no title) for a website page, the file name for a file, “Pasted text” for a note, or the question for a Q&A answer. A Q&A answer close enough to be given ahead of everything else comes first, marked Your Q&A answer, used first.
  • The passage text: the exact text the agent would have to answer from.
You’ll see at most five passages, the same five the agent would get. Weak matches, below 50%, aren’t shown, because the agent never sees them either. If nothing comes back, you’ll see: “No passages matched — the agent would say it’s not sure and offer to take a message.” That’s what happens in a real conversation too.

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Use it to debug an answer

Start from the question that went wrong, word for word, and read what comes back. After any fix, run the same question again. A change you haven’t re-tested might not have worked. A new note can still lose to a page that uses the same words more often.

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What it doesn’t show

  • The agent’s actual reply. This only shows what the search returns. To see what the agent says, open Preview at the top of any agent page and ask it there (see Test your agent).
  • Exactly what the agent searches for. In a conversation, the agent writes its own short search phrase from what the customer said, so its wording can differ from yours. Try two or three phrasings of the same question.
  • Whether the agent searches at all. If Answer from knowledge is off under Instructions, the agent never searches, whatever this test shows.