AI Assistant

The Virtuous API Docs include a built-in AI Assistant — a chat panel that answers your questions using the actual content of the docs. Ask anything about the Virtuous APIs, and the assistant searches the documentation in real time, returns answers grounded in the docs, and cites specific pages so you can dive deeper. This isn’t the same as your external AI tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) — those connect to the MCP server and pull docs into their workflows. The AI Assistant is built into docs.virtuous.org itself and works in your browser.

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What the AI Assistant does

When you ask a question, the assistant:

• Searches the docs for relevant content across all four tabs (CRM+, Raise, Volunteer, Virtuous)
• Reads the relevant pages to construct an answer
• Cites its sources — every answer includes links to the pages it pulled from
• Builds context from your current page — questions are interpreted with the page you’re reading as background
• Returns API details — including methods, parameters, request bodies, and response schemas from the OpenAPI specs
• Generates copyable code — answers often include code examples you can copy directly into your project
• Handles multiple modalities — you can attach text, images, and other files for context

The result is conversational documentation: instead of hunting through pages, you ask the question and get an answer.

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When to use the AI Assistant

Different tools fit different needs. Here’s how to choose: The AI Assistant is most valuable when you want to ask rather than search — when phrasing the question is faster than guessing the right keywords.

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Opening the assistant

There are several ways to start a conversation: The chat panel opens on the right side of the page. The page you were reading stays open behind it — useful when you want to read along with the conversation.

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What kinds of questions work well

The assistant is grounded in the docs, so it answers best when your question maps to content the docs actually cover.

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Strong questions

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Less effective questions

If the assistant can’t find relevant content, it’ll say so rather than fabricating an answer.

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Building on the current page’s context

When you ask a question, the assistant uses the page you’re reading as context. This means follow-up questions often work better than full-context restatements: For best results, navigate to the most relevant page first, then ask. The assistant will combine the page content with the question to produce a contextually-aware answer.

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Highlighting text to ask about it

Sometimes the question you want to ask is about a specific piece of text on the page. The assistant supports this directly:

1. Highlight the text or code block you want to ask about
2. Click the Add to assistant button that appears
3. The assistant chat panel opens with that text included as context
4. Type your question (or use one of the assistant’s suggested follow-ups)

This works for prose text and for code blocks. The “Ask AI” button is also available within code blocks specifically — useful when you’re looking at a complex code sample and want to understand it. You can add multiple highlights to a single conversation. The assistant uses them all as context.

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Attaching files for context

For questions where the answer depends on something the docs don’t know about — your existing code, a screenshot of an error, your data structure — you can attach files to the assistant chat.

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What you can attach

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Limits

• Maximum file size: 5 MB per attachment
• Maximum attachments per message: 10

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When attachments help

The assistant treats attached files as context for its answer. It doesn’t store them after the conversation — they’re used to generate the response, not retained.

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How the assistant handles questions it can’t answer

If the assistant searches the docs and doesn’t find content that answers your question, it’ll say so directly rather than fabricating an answer. You’ll typically see something like:

“I don’t have information about that in the Virtuous documentation. You may want to contact the Virtuous support team for this question.”

When this happens, your options are: The assistant being honest about limits is intentional — it’s better than confidently wrong answers.

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What gets indexed (and what doesn’t)

The assistant searches the published Virtuous API Docs — everything you can see at docs.virtuous.org. A few specifics: This means the assistant answers from the current published state of the docs. As content is updated, the assistant’s answers reflect the updates immediately.

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What the assistant won’t do

A few things to be clear about: The assistant is a documentation companion, not a runtime tool or sales interface.

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Practical workflows

A few patterns that emerge naturally:

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“I’m stuck on a specific concept”

1. Navigate to the most relevant Concepts page
2. Open the assistant (Cmd + I)
3. Ask the specific question — the assistant uses the page as context
4. Follow the citations to read more

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”I need to write code that does X”

1. Open the assistant from anywhere
2. Ask: “Write me a JavaScript function that does X. Use the Virtuous API patterns from the docs.”
3. The assistant generates code grounded in documented patterns
4. Copy the code; follow the citations to verify the underlying patterns

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”I’m debugging an error response”

1. Open the assistant
2. Paste the error response (or attach a screenshot)
3. Ask what the error means and what the documented recovery is
4. Apply the suggested approach

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”I’m comparing options across products”

1. Open the assistant
2. Ask: “Compare how CRM+ and Raise handle webhook signature verification.”
3. The assistant pulls from both products and synthesizes a comparison
4. Follow citations to dive deeper on either product

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”I want to share a question with a teammate”

1. Construct the question
2. Build a deep-link URL: https://docs.virtuous.org/some-relevant-page?assistant=<URL-encoded-question>
3. Send the URL to your teammate; clicking it opens the assistant pre-loaded with your question

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Tips for getting the most out of the assistant

A handful of practices that consistently improve results:

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Privacy and trust

A few things to know about how the assistant handles your conversations:

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Where to go next