AI Assistant
Every Doccupine site ships with a built-in AI assistant that helps visitors find answers across your documentation. The AI settings page lets you choose how it's powered.
Modes
Platform (default)
Uses Doccupine's built-in integration. Zero configuration needed - the AI assistant works out of the box with no API keys or setup.
Each plan includes a monthly AI usage budget:
| Plan | Monthly Budget |
|---|---|
| Trial | $2 |
| Pro | $20 |
| Enterprise | $50 |
The AI settings page shows a usage dashboard with your current spending and remaining budget. Usage resets automatically with your billing cycle.
AI credit top-ups
If you run out of AI credits before your billing cycle resets, you can purchase a one-time top-up to increase your monthly limit. Available tiers:
- $5
- $10
- $20
Top-ups are added to your current cycle's budget immediately after purchase and reset when your billing cycle renews. You can purchase multiple top-ups in the same cycle.
Custom
Bring your own API key for full control over the AI model. Supported providers:
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
In Custom mode, you can also configure:
- Embedding model - the model used to index your documentation content
- Temperature - controls response creativity (0.0 for focused answers, up to 1.0 for more varied responses)
For a complete list of available models, refer to the official documentation of your chosen provider.
Off
Completely disables the AI assistant on your site.
AI settings are stored as environment variables on your deployment, not in a JSON file. After saving, a redeploy is triggered automatically to apply the changes.
AI endpoint authentication
Your site's chat endpoint (/api/rag) is public by default, in the same way your documentation is. That means anyone who finds the endpoint can send it questions, and every question spends from your AI budget. On a site you expect to be found, it is worth deciding deliberately whether that is what you want.
To require a key:
- Enable Require API key for AI chat in the Authentication card.
- Enter an API key.
- Save.
Clients must then send the key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header of every request to /api/rag.
On a public site, turning this on also stops the chat widget on your own documentation from answering visitors. A browser cannot safely hold a server secret, so there is nowhere for the page to keep the key - only API clients that send the Bearer token get answers.
If you want readers to keep using the assistant while still closing the endpoint to strangers, protect the whole site with a password instead - see Authentication. Readers who have unlocked the site keep chatting as normal, and the API key becomes a second way in for programmatic clients rather than a replacement for the first.
The key is stored as an environment variable (RAG_API_KEY) on your deployment. After saving, a redeploy is triggered automatically to apply the change. See Authentication for how the site gate, RAG_API_KEY, and DOCS_API_KEY interact.
Connecting external AI tools (Claude, Cursor, and others) to your site is configured on the dedicated MCP page, which also covers MCP server authentication.