Knowledge Base

The knowledge base is the information your chatbot can draw on when answering questions. You can add sources as crawled websites, individual URLs, or manually written question-and-answer pairs. Elaras indexes the content and retrieves the most relevant chunks at inference time.

Source types

Adding a URL source

In the Elaras dashboard, open your chatbot and go to Knowledge > Add source > URL.

Paste the URL and click Add. Elaras fetches the page, strips navigation and boilerplate, and indexes the content. Indexing usually completes within a few seconds for a single page.

Via the API:

curl -X POST "https://api.elaras.ai/api/developer/v1/chatbots/{chatbot_id}/knowledge" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"type": "url", "url": "https://example.com/faq"}'
Copy

Adding a crawl source

Go to Knowledge > Add source > Website crawl. Enter the start URL and configure the crawl depth (how many links deep to follow from the starting page). A depth of 1 only indexes the start page; 2 follows links on the start page; and so on.

Large crawls run in the background — the dashboard shows indexing progress. You can start using the chatbot while the crawl completes; the knowledge base updates incrementally.

Via the API:

curl -X POST "https://api.elaras.ai/api/developer/v1/chatbots/{chatbot_id}/knowledge" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "type": "crawl",
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "depth": 3
  }'
Copy

Adding Q&A pairs

Go to Knowledge > Add source > Q&A. Enter a question and the exact answer you want the AI to give. Use Q&A for answers that need to be precise — pricing, legal disclaimers, support contact details — where you do not want the AI to paraphrase.

Via the API:

curl -X POST "https://api.elaras.ai/api/developer/v1/chatbots/{chatbot_id}/knowledge" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "type": "qa",
    "question": "What is your refund policy?",
    "answer": "We offer a full refund within 30 days of purchase. No questions asked."
  }'
Copy

Resyncing sources

URL and crawl sources are not automatically updated when your website changes. To pull in the latest content, resync the source from the dashboard (Knowledge > source menu > Resync) or via the API:

curl -X POST "https://api.elaras.ai/api/developer/v1/chatbots/{chatbot_id}/knowledge/{knowledge_id}/resync" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key_here"
Copy

A resync re-fetches the original URL or re-crawls the site and re-indexes the content. The previous version remains active until indexing completes.

Listing and deleting sources

# List all knowledge sources
curl "https://api.elaras.ai/api/developer/v1/chatbots/{chatbot_id}/knowledge" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key_here"

# Delete a source
curl -X DELETE "https://api.elaras.ai/api/developer/v1/chatbots/{chatbot_id}/knowledge/{knowledge_id}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key_here"
Copy

Deleting a source removes its indexed content immediately. The chatbot will no longer draw on that source for new conversations.

Tips

• Be specific with URLs. Adding the exact page that answers a question (e.g. /pricing) is more effective than crawling the whole site if only that page is relevant.
• Use Q&A for invariants. Facts that must never be paraphrased — prices, legal copy, contact details — should be Q&A pairs, not crawled pages.
• Crawl depth vs. breadth. A depth of 2–3 covers most documentation sites. Very large crawls slow indexing and can include irrelevant pages like blog archives.
• Resync on publish. Add a resync call to your deployment pipeline so the knowledge base stays current whenever your website is updated.