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Embedding & Channels
Put your sidekick on your website as a full chat panel or a floating chat bubble. People can also email it, or message it on Telegram. All of these are set up on the sidekick's Connections tab.
On this page
Getting the embed code The three embed styles Chat modes: text, voice and video Guests and signed-in members Chat bubble settings What visitors see Email channel Telegram channel On a WordPress siteGetting the embed code
You can copy embed code from two places:
- Sidekicks page: right-click a sidekick's avatar in the carousel and choose Embed Code.
- Grid view: click Grid View at the top of the Sidekicks page, then Copy Embed Code on the sidekick's card.
Either way, the Copy Embed Code window opens. Pick a style, then press Copy.
The three embed styles
Full panel
Inline on the page, with every feature. Best for a dedicated page or section.
Chat bubble
A floating bubble in the corner that opens into a chat panel. Best for support across your whole site.
Search page
A search box over the knowledge base, with an answer and the documents behind it. It isn't a chat.
Full panel
Paste this anywhere in your page's HTML. Your snippet already contains your real account ID and sidekick name.
allow attribute. Without allow="microphone; camera; fullscreen", the browser blocks the microphone and camera inside the frame, so voice and video chat can't start. Some page builders strip unknown attributes, so check the attribute is still there after you save.You can change the width, max-width and height values to fit your layout. The chat needs about 500px of height to be comfortable.
Chat bubble
Paste this once, just before </body>, or in your site's footer scripts. One bubble runs per page.
The bubble's colour, position, size and greeting come from the sidekick's settings in Sidekick Forge, not from the snippet. See Chat bubble settings below.
Search page
This embeds the public AI Search page instead of a chat:
It only works once you've turned on Publish a search page under Connections → AI Search. Until then, the window shows a warning.
Chat modes: text, voice and video
On the Connections tab, Chat Mode Settings controls which modes the embed offers:
- Enable Voice Chat: people talk to the sidekick out loud.
- Enable Text Chat: people type.
- Enable Video Chat: people talk face to face with the sidekick's avatar. Champion and up
At least one mode must be on. If only one is on, the embed opens straight into that mode and hides the tab switcher. The avatar used for video is set on the Body tab (see Configuring Your Sidekick).
Guests and signed-in members
Guest chat
With Allow guest chat on, visitors can chat without creating an account. A guest's conversation history stays on their own device, and the sidekick doesn't remember them across devices.
Partway through, guests are offered to Save this conversation to keep it on your other devices. If they create an account, the conversation moves with them.
Signed-in members
With guest chat off, visitors see Sign In and Create Account inside the embed. Signed-in members get:
- their full conversation history on any device;
- a sidekick that remembers them over time (see Lore & Memory);
- access to documents and abilities their account is allowed to use.
On a WordPress site with the Sidekick Forge Connect plugin, members who are logged in to WordPress are signed in to the embed automatically. See WordPress.
Chat bubble settings
The Chat Bubble Widget section on the Connections tab styles the floating bubble. These settings don't affect the full-panel embed.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Greeting message | A short teaser shown in a small bubble beside the avatar before anyone opens the chat. Leave it blank for the default. |
| Opening message | The first thing the sidekick says, in its own voice, once the chat is open. It applies to text chat in both embed styles. The sidekick doesn't read it back as part of the conversation, so write it to make sense on its own rather than as a question. |
| Screen position | Bottom right or Bottom left. |
| Accent colour | The bubble's colour. |
| Bubble size (px) | How big the closed bubble is. |
| Greeting delay (ms) | How long to wait before showing the greeting teaser. |
| Open automatically on page load | Opens the chat as soon as the page loads, on desktop only. It never opens automatically on mobile. |
Because these live in Sidekick Forge, the bubble looks the same everywhere you embed that sidekick. Remember to press Save Changes at the top of the page.
What visitors see
- Text, voice and video buttons switch modes. Voice and video ask for microphone (and camera) permission the first time.
- New Conversation starts fresh, and View Conversation History reopens earlier chats. History needs a signed-in member, or the same device for a guest.
- Fullscreen expands the chat to fill the screen. This works in the bubble too.
- Sources: when an answer comes from your knowledge base, a footer under the reply lists the documents it used. You can turn this off with Show Knowledge Base Citations on the Settings tab.
- Ability cards: some abilities show their results as cards in the chat, such as product cards from your shop, article drafts, images and progress for longer jobs.
Email channel
Each sidekick can have its own email address. On the Connections tab, under Channels, turn on Email (Allow users to email this sidekick directly). The Sidekick Email Address appears with a copy button.
- Only members of your workspace can email it. That means your admins, your subscribers and members signed in through your WordPress site. Anyone else gets a short "members only" reply.
- A first-time sender verifies once. The sidekick replies with a one-time code. Once the sender sends the code back, their message is answered, and later emails skip this step.
- Replies arrive as normal threaded email, and the conversation shares the same memory as the web chat.
The email channel is for people writing to the sidekick. For the sidekick to send email on its own, add the Email ability (see Abilities).
Telegram channel
Give the sidekick its own Telegram bot so people can message it from their phone. Its chats there share memory with the web app.
Create a bot with BotFather
On the Connections tab, under Telegram, press Open BotFather. That's Telegram's official tool for making bots. Send it /newbot (there's a button to copy it) and choose a name and a username for the bot.
Paste the token
BotFather replies with a message containing a token that looks like 123456789:AAG…. Paste it into Paste it here. We'll pick out the token. You can paste the whole message. Then press Connect.
Test it and choose how it replies
Once it shows Connected, press Send test message. Then choose your settings:
- Answer messages on Telegram: turn this off to pause the bot without disconnecting it.
- Listen to voice notes: the sidekick transcribes voice notes and answers them.
- How should it reply?: Match the message (voice for voice), Always text, or Voice only when spoken to.
How people connect
People message the sidekick's bot directly. The first time, they're asked to connect their Sidekick Forge account, so their Telegram chats share the same memory as the web app.
Members can also link Telegram ahead of time from Profile Settings → Channels (click your name at the bottom of the admin sidebar) with Connect Telegram. On a computer, scan the QR code with your phone. Once linked, your sidekicks can also deliver reminders and briefs on Telegram.
Your workspace Settings page lists every sidekick's Telegram status in one place.
On a WordPress site
On WordPress you don't need to paste code. The free Sidekick Forge Connect plugin adds a Sidekick Forge Embed block, a shortcode, a sidebar widget and a sitewide chat bubble. It also signs your logged-in WordPress members in to the embed automatically. See WordPress.
Building something custom that goes beyond these embeds? Email help@sidekickforge.com and tell us what you have in mind.