AI chat widget for Docusaurus

Add an AI chatbot to your Docusaurus site using Biel.ai's official plugin. The integration works with any Docusaurus v3 site and adds both chat and search capabilities to your documentation.

This guide shows you how to install and configure the plugin using NPM in just a few minutes.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have::

• A Biel.ai account. If you don't have one, sign up for free.
• A project created in your Biel.ai dashboard. Follow the Quickstart guide to create one.
• A Docusaurus documentation site ready to install Biel.ai.
• Node.js installed.

Installation

The Biel.AI chat widget enables a conversational chat powered by AI in your site.

To integrate the Biel.AI chat widget into your Docusaurus site:

1. Open your terminal or command prompt. Navigate to your project's root directory using the cd command:

   cd path/to/your/project

   Replace path/to/your/project with your project's actual directory path.

2. With your terminal still open, run the following command to install Biel.ai extension for Docusaurus:

   npm install docusaurus-biel

3. Add the plugin to your Docusaurus config file docusaurus.config.js:

   plugins: [
       [
           'docusaurus-biel',{
               project: '<YOUR_PROJECT_ID>',
               headerTitle: 'Biel.ai chatbot',
               version: 'latest'
           }
       ]
   ],

   Replace <YOUR_PROJECT_ID> with your project's ID from the Biel.ai dashboard.

4. Start your Docusaurus project by running npm start or yarn start in your terminal. Once it compiles successfully, verify that the chatbot appears and functions correctly on your site.

Customization

You can customize the Biel.AI chat widget to suit your needs. For example, you can change the widget's position, color, and more.

To do so, you can add any of the following customization options to the plugin or formatted as camelCase.

Here's an example:

plugins: [
    [
        'docusaurus-biel',{
            enable: true,
            project: '<YOUR_PROJECT_ID>',
            bielButtonText: 'ASK AI',
            buttonPosition: 'center-right',
            modalPosition: 'sidebar-right',
            headerTitle: 'Biel.ai chatbot'
            buttonStyle: 'dark',
        }
    ]
],

To further customize the style of the Biel.AI chat widget in Docusaurus, such as altering the widget's background color, you can override specific CSS properties. This is done by defining these properties in a custom stylesheet. Here's how you can do it:

1. In your project's src directory, create the file css/custom.css.

2. In the custom.css file, you can define your custom CSS properties. For example, to change the widget's primary color, add the following CSS rule:

   :root {
       --biel-primary-color: #FF0000; /* Replace #FF0000 with the hex color code of your choice */
   }

   For a complete reference of properties you can modify, see the Styles documentation.

3. Open your docusaurus.config.js file and locate the presets array and within it, the classic preset configuration. Then, add a reference to your custom stylesheet in the theme configuration. It should look something like this:

   presets: [
       [
           'classic',
           {
           // ... other configurations ...
           theme: {
               customCss: require.resolve('./src/css/custom.css'), // Add this line
           },
           // ... other configurations ...
           },
       ],
   ],

Advanced: Enable AI search

Biel.ai's search widget offers a search-based interaction that allows users to query documentation or other indexed content.

To integrate the search widget into your Docusaurus site, follow these steps:

1. Open your terminal or command prompt. Navigate to your project's root directory using the cd command:

   cd path/to/your/project

   Replace path/to/your/project with your project's actual directory path.

2. With your terminal still open, run the following command to install Biel.ai extension for Docusaurus:

   npm install docusaurus-biel

3. Swizzling allows you to customize the SearchBar component. Run this command:

   npm run swizzle @docusaurus/theme-classic SearchBar
   • When prompted with the question: Which language do you want to use?, choose TypeScript.
   • When prompted with the question: Which swizzle action do you want to do?, choose Eject to extract the SearchBar component into the src/theme directory.

4. Open the file at src/theme/SearchBar.tsx and replace its content with the following:

   import React from 'react';
   
   export default function SearchBar() {
       // Replace with your <PROJECT_ID>
       const projectId = '<PROJECT_ID>';
       const headerTitle = 'Documentation chatbot';
       // @ts-ignore: Not a React component
       return <biel-search-button project={projectId} button-style="rounded" header-title={headerTitle}>Search</biel-search-button>;
   }

   Replace <PROJECT_ID> with your project's ID from the Biel.ai dashboard.

5. Run your Docusaurus site to verify the changes:

   npm run start

6. Check that the Biel.ai search widget appears and functions correctly on your site.

7. (Optional) If you want to hide the floating widget and use only the Biel.ai search bar, you can disable the floating button by adding the following option to your docusaurus.config.js file:

   plugins: [
       [
           'docusaurus-biel', {
               enable: false,
               project: '<YOUR_PROJECT_ID>',
               headerTitle: 'Biel.ai chatbot',
               version: 'latest'
           }
       ]
   ],

Need help?

We're here to help! Reach out to us at Biel.ai Support.