Go-live checklist

What it is

Going live means three separate things are true at the same time:

1. The chatbot knows something — at least one knowledge source has finished training.
2. The chatbot is activated — its status is active, not draft or inactive.
3. There is a channel visitors can actually reach — a hosted link, an embedded widget, or a connected messaging app.

Miss the first and visitors get a polite "not ready yet" reply. Miss the second and they get a not-found page. Miss the third and nobody arrives at all. The three failures look completely different, which is why the checklist below is ordered.

When you would use it

The day you want the first real customer to talk to your chatbot — and again whenever you publish an existing chatbot to a new site.

Where to find it

Open Dashboard → Chatbots → your chatbot.

The checklist

1. Knowledge is in and trained

• At least one source added under Knowledge — uploaded file, pasted text, cloud import, or a website crawl.
• Every source you care about shows as trained, not pending, training, or failed.
• You have removed anything outdated. Stale knowledge produces confidently wrong answers, which are worse than no answer.

Start at Knowledge overview. If something is stuck, see Knowledge stuck processing.

2. The words are yours

• Welcome message written on Settings → Messages & language. This is the first thing a visitor reads.
• Fallback message written. This is what they get when the chatbot cannot answer, and it is the sentence most likely to annoy someone. Keep it honest — do not promise a human reply if nobody is on call.
• Primary language matches your visitors, not your team.

See Chatbot messages and language.

3. Behaviour is deliberate

• Instructions reviewed — tone, things never to say, things always to mention. See Write instructions.
• Call actions reviewed. Anything you are not ready to have fire at 2am should be off. See What are Call actions.
• Response length and reference links set on Settings → AI configuration. See Chatbot AI settings.
• Lead capture decided. If it is on, you are storing names and emails — make sure that is what you intend. See Lead capture fields.

4. You have actually tested it

• Five real questions asked through Test Chatbot, including one you know it cannot answer.
• Sources checked on at least one answer — the right document, not merely a plausible one.

Try Test Chatbot has a suggested test set.

5. Activate

• Status is active on Settings → Danger zone (or from the activation note on the Playground tab).

Activation is what makes the public page and widget exist at all. It does not start training and it does not spend credits. See Activate or pause a chatbot.

6. Publish a channel

Pick at least one:

Hosted link — works on every plan, including Free.

• Copy the /agent/{handle} URL from Integrations → Messaging → Direct link.
• Decide whether the page is public or protected. See Hosted page access control.

See Share a hosted link.

Website widget — needs a paid plan.

• Snippet pasted on the published site, not only a draft preview.
• Your live host added to allowed domains and saved. An empty allowlist blocks the widget everywhere.
• Both www and non-www added if visitors can reach you either way.

See Embed the website widget and Allow the widget on your domains.

Messaging apps — availability varies.

See Channels overview.

7. Prove it from outside

• Open the hosted link (or your site) in a private window on a phone, signed out of everything.
• Ask one real question and get a real answer.
• If lead capture is on, complete the form and confirm the person shows up under Customers.
• Open Conversations on the chatbot and confirm your test thread is there.

This last step catches the failures nothing in the dashboard can: a snippet on a staging template, a cached page, a blocked domain.

8. Know your budget

• Check the credits meter in the sidebar. Every visitor turn spends credits at the chatbot's live model rate (1X = one credit), and when they run out the chatbot stops answering. See Message credits.

What you will see

An active but untrained chatbot still loads its public page and shows a not-ready reply rather than an error. A draft or inactive chatbot behaves completely differently: the hosted page returns a not-found screen and the widget refuses to load. Learning to tell those two apart at a glance saves an afternoon — Chatbot readiness is the two-minute version.

Limits and plan notes

On Free you get the hosted link only — no widget, no plugins, no messaging channels, one chatbot, 400 KB of knowledge, and 50 message credits. That is enough to run a genuine pilot with real people; you just cannot put the bubble on your own site until you upgrade. See Plans and what you get and Integrations and plans.

Common problems

The hosted page shows "not found".

The chatbot is still draft or inactive, or you used a stale handle after renaming. Activate it and recopy the link from Channels. See Hosted page 404.

The widget does not appear on my site.

Work through The widget is not showing. In production the usual cause is an empty or incomplete allowed-domains list.

Visitors get "I'm not ready yet".

The chatbot is active but has not finished training. See Untrained mode.

It answered me but not my colleague.

Ask them to try a private window. If it still fails, check whether the hosted page has access protection turned on.

Everything worked, then stopped a week later.

Check credits first, then check whether anyone edited knowledge and left a source in a failed state.