{"slug": "ask-the-docs", "title": "Ask the Docs", "summary": "Typemill, an open-source Markdown-based CMS, has released an Ask the Docs plugin that adds a documentation chatbot without a vector database, embeddings, MCP server or third-party service, requiring only an OpenAI-compatible AI provider or a local model such as Ollama. The plugin builds an index from AI-written page summaries and walks the site's navigation hierarchy level by level to select pages, then sends their full text to the model to write an answer with source links. Ask the Docs requires Typemill Core, the plugin and a Typemill Maker License; the official demo runs on GPT-5 mini.", "body_md": "# Ask the Docs: A Simple Chatbot for Your Documentation\n\nChatting with documents was one of the first popular use cases for AI. Many third-party tools can add a chat window to your documentation. Most of them copy your content into a separate vector database and use an architecture called RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). That works, but it adds another service to set up, pay for and keep in sync.\n\nThere is a simpler way if your documentation runs on [Typemill](https://typemill.net/). Typemill is an open-source, Markdown-based CMS that runs on your server and easily connects with all kinds of AI services. With the [Ask the Docs](https://plugins.typemill.net/askthedocs) plugin, you can add a chatbot to your site that does not need a vector database, an MCP server or a third-party service. It only needs an AI service that writes the answers. If you use a local model, for example with Ollama, your content never leaves your own infrastructure. You can try it out on the official [Typemill documentation site](https://docs.typemill.net).\n\n## What You Get\n\n- A chat window on your documentation website\n- Answers based on your own pages, with links to the sources\n- No vector database, no embeddings and no extra service to maintain\n- Your choice of AI service: any OpenAI-compatible provider, in the cloud or on your own hardware\n- Optional logs of questions, so you can see what users want to know\n- Limits and custom instructions, so you stay in control\n\n## What You Need\n\n- [Typemill Core](https://typemill.net/starter-guide/installation)\n- The [Ask the Docs](https://plugins.typemill.net/askthedocs) plugin\n- A Typemill [Maker License](https://typemill.net/license/buy)\n- An AI service (a cloud provider or a local model such as Ollama)\n\n## How It Works\n\nAsk the Docs builds its own index of your site and uses the AI to navigate it:\n\n1. **Index:** Typemill keeps a short summary for every page. The AI writes these summaries, and you generate them with one click.\n2. **Question:** When a visitor asks a question, Typemill sends the index to your AI service.\n3. **Selection:** The AI picks the pages that are likely to answer the question. It starts with the first level of your navigation. If it finds a folder with promising content, it moves on to the second level, and so on.\n4. **Answer:** Typemill sends the full text of the selected pages to the AI, which writes a short answer and links to the sources.\n\nBecause the index follows your navigation structure, well-organized documentation gives better results.\n\n## Step 1: Connect to an AI Provider\n\nTypemill provides connectors for Anthropic and any OpenAI-compatible provider. The model can run in the cloud or on your own hardware, for example with Ollama or LM Studio. You can configure the AI service in the System Settings:\n\n1. Go to **System Settings** and open the**AI** tab.\n2. Choose your **AI adapter** .\n3. Enter the **base URL** of the service and, if needed, an**API key** .\n4. Select the **model** .\n\nFor Ollama, configure it as an OpenAI-compatible provider with its base URL and your model name (no API key is needed unless you have set one up). Details are in [the documentation](https://docs.typemill.net/admin-guide/ai-tab).\n\n**Which model?** Smaller, cheaper models give correct but short answers. Larger models give richer answers and cost more. The [demo](https://try.typemill.net) runs on GPT-5 mini, which is cheap and good enough for documentation.\n\n## Step 2: Install the Ask the Docs Plugin\n\nTo install the Ask the Docs plugin, download it from the [plugin directory](https://plugins.typemill.net/askthedocs), unzip it, and upload it to the plugins folder of Typemill. Then open the plugin area in the Typemill admin interface, configure it, and activate it.\n\n## Step 3: Generate the Index\n\nAfter the activation of the plugin, there is a new **Ask the Docs** item in the system navigation. Click the button to generate summaries for all pages. You can also generate a summary for a single page. Wait until it finishes. For a site with about 200 pages, this took around 10 minutes. You can read, review, and edit the generated summaries on the same screen.\n\n**Cost:** With a cheap model, indexing the Typemill site (about 200 pages) cost less than one euro.\n\n## Step 4: Configure the Chatbot\n\nIn the plugin settings, you can set:\n\n- **Appearance:** colors and design of the chat in the frontend\n- **Instructions:** your own instructions for the AI, such as tone, language, or what to do when the answer is not in the docs\n- **Limits:** for example, how many questions a user may ask per day\n- **Logs and privacy:** whether to store questions, and what to show visitors\n\n## Step 5: Integrate and Test the Chatbot\n\nYou can integrate the chatbot on any page with a shortcode. Just use the shortcode button of the editor and publish the page. After that, you should test the chatbot in the frontend:\n\n1. Open the homepage of your documentation website.\n2. Open the chat window and ask a question you know your docs answer, such as \"Can I use Ollama with Typemill?\"\n3. Check that the answer is correct and that the source links lead to the right pages.\n4. Ask a follow-up question.\n5. Ask something your docs do **not** cover, and check that the chatbot says so instead of inventing an answer.\n\n## Logs and Privacy\n\nIf you activate logging, you can see every question and look into the whole process: which prompts were sent and which index was used. The plugin does not store user-related data such as IP addresses, only the question.\n\nBefore you activate logging, check that it complies with the laws and regulations that apply to you, such as data-protection rules. Also remember that with a cloud provider, the questions and the relevant page content are sent to that provider. With a local model, nothing leaves your server.\n\n## Where It Works Best\n\nAsk the Docs works best for **closed documentation**: a knowledge base for customers or an internal handbook for your team. On a fully public site, anyone can use the chat and incur costs, so we don't recommend it there. If you do run it publicly, set strict daily limits.\n\nTypemill provides an Ask the Typemill Docs feature in the Kixote interface that works with the same plugin, so if you provide your own software, then you could also try to integrate your own documentation in the same way using the Typemill API.\n\n## Limits\n\n- Answers are only as good as your content and your navigation structure.\n- Cheaper models produce short answers.\n- The chatbot can still make mistakes. Treat it as a helpful way into your docs, not as a replacement for them.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-the-docs", "canonical_source": "https://typemill.net/knowledge-hub/ask-the-docs", "published_at": "2026-10-26 08:23:24+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-26 12:41:20.476220+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-products", "ai-tools", "generative-ai", "large-language-models"], "entities": ["Typemill", "Ask the Docs", "Ollama", "LM Studio", "Anthropic", "OpenAI", "GPT-5 mini"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-the-docs", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-the-docs.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-the-docs.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-the-docs.jsonld"}}