Ask AI
Ask AI, in the top bar, opens a panel beside the page where you ask questions in plain words: about the page you are on, about this server and its instances, or about the product. The answer links to console pages and to this manual. Ask AI explains; it never starts, stops or changes anything.
The panel stays open while you move between pages, so you can follow its links and keep the conversation going. While it is open you watch the answer arrive; when it is closed, a notice with Open tells you the answer is ready.
Ask AI needs three things in the license: the AI assistant (ai), Ask AI (ai-ask) and the
provider it asks (ai-provider-anthropic, ai-provider-openai or ai-provider-azure-openai). The
Professional and Provider editions carry them.
Who may ask
Every signed-in person may ask, the read-only roles included: asking changes nothing, and the assistant only looks at what you may already see. A shared demonstration account cannot use Ask AI, because its conversations would belong to everyone who signs in with it.
The button is not shown when Ask AI is off or the license does not carry it. It is shown greyed, with the reason as its tooltip, when there is no key you may use.
Which key pays for a question follows the same rule as Diagnose: your own key for the provider you prefer, on My Account > AI assistant, and otherwise the server's key for its default provider when Who may use the server keys lets you. See Which key a diagnosis uses.
Ask a question
- Press Ask AI in the top bar.
- Type the question and press Enter (Shift+Enter starts a new line).
- The answer appears under the question as it is written. Stop ends it early.
The question carries the page you asked it on: the page's address, and the instance or the job it shows. Ask a follow-up in the same conversation, or start over with New conversation.
Under each answer:
- What was sent shows exactly what left the server for it: your question as it was sent and the result of every lookup the assistant made.
- The token line says how many tokens the answer took, which provider and model answered, and whose key paid.
One question at a time: a second one waits until the first is answered or stopped.
What the assistant may look up
While it answers, the assistant may look things up, at most four times per answer, and always only what you may see yourself:
| Lookup | What it reads |
|---|---|
| Instances | The instances you may see: name, state, Odoo version and address |
| Instance health | One instance's latest health report |
| Failed jobs | The jobs that failed in the last seven days, for one instance or all of yours |
| Job log | The end of one job's log |
| Backup outcomes | How the last backup of each instance ended |
| Alerts | The latest alerts the server published, for administrators only |
| Search the manual | Pages of this manual about a few words |
| Read the manual | One page of this manual |
The manual is read live from docs.antelao.io, one page at a time, through the
outbound proxy when one is set. It may describe a
newer release than the one installed, and the panel says so. A server that cannot reach the site
answers without the manual.
What leaves the server
Before anything is sent, your question, the page it was asked on, the earlier turns of the conversation and every lookup result go through the same scrubber as Diagnose and the support bundle: people's names, user names and e-mail addresses are replaced, and passwords, keys, tokens and anything shaped like a credential are masked. The question is stored as it was sent, so your own conversation shows the placeholders too.
The scrubber recognises a credential by its name or its shape. Do not paste passwords or keys: a bare secret with nothing around it may not be recognised. The panel repeats this under the box you type in.
The question and the answer never appear in the job list, a job's log or the audit trail; those record only that a question was asked, by whom, with which provider, model and key, and how many tokens it took.
Turn it on
Ask AI is off after the update. An administrator switches it on under Configuration > AI assistant, where the AI assistant itself must be on too:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| People may ask in the top bar | The switch. Off, the button is not shown to anybody |
| Keep conversations for | How many days after a conversation's last question it is kept; 90 by default |
| Conversations per person | How many each person keeps; 50 by default. The oldest goes first when a person starts one more |
| Tokens per person per day | On the server's keys; 200,000 by default. A person's own key is not held to it |
| Tokens per month for the server | On the server's keys, for everyone together. Empty for no monthly cap, the default |
Every person may also ask at most 30 questions an hour, whichever key pays. Deleting conversations does not give questions or tokens back.
Ask AI use this month, on the same page, lists each person's questions and tokens this calendar month (UTC), on the server's keys and on their own.
History
History, in the panel, lists your conversations, newest first. Open one to read it or to go on asking, download one or all of them as Markdown, or delete one or all. Deleting is a job; a deleted conversation cannot be brought back.
Conversations are kept for the days set under Keep conversations for, and a person keeps at most Conversations per person of them. Removing an account removes its conversations.
Who may read your conversations
You, and the server's Administrators. An Administrator reads them under People's conversations on Configuration > AI assistant: Show conversations lists them, for one person or everyone, and each conversation opens read-only. Every list and every read is recorded in the audit trail, naming whose conversations were read. Read-only administrators cannot read other people's conversations.
When it does not work
- The button is not there. Ask AI or the AI assistant is off, or the license does not carry Ask AI.
- The button is greyed. Its tooltip says why: the provider it would ask is off or not in the license, or there is no key you may use.
- "You have asked 30 questions in the last hour". Ask again in a little while; the limit holds whichever key pays.
- A token limit on the server's keys is reached, for you today or for the server this month. Wait for the next day or month, add a key of your own under My Account > AI assistant, or ask an administrator to raise the limit under Configuration > AI assistant.
- The answer stops with a provider error. The same errors as Diagnose, with the same remedies: see When it does not work.