Test Conversations

Mark chatbot conversations as "test" so they stay out of your inbox and don't skew performance numbers. Useful when your team is QA-ing the bot or doing demos from the office.

How to get there: Go to Setup → Chatbot in the top menu → click your chatbot → Advanced tab → Test Mode in the sidebar.

What is a test conversation?

A test conversation is a normal AI chat that's been flagged with is_test = true. The bot still answers, credits are still spent (so usage stays honest), but the conversation is:

  • Hidden from the inbox by default
  • Excluded from the Performance dashboard by default
  • Still searchable when you explicitly opt in

There are two ways to flag a conversation as test: by IP, or with an in-chat command.

Option 1: Flag by IP (automatic)

Add one or more IPs to the Test IPs field. Any chat that starts from one of those IPs is auto-flagged.

  • Comma-separated list, e.g. 1.2.3.4, 5.6.7.8
  • Exact IP match only (no CIDR ranges in v1)
  • Most teams add their office IP here

Find your office IP: Visit whatismyip.com from the office network and paste the result into the field.

Option 2: FLAG_TEST in-chat command

If you're testing the bot from a different network (home, coffee shop, mobile), you can mark the current conversation as test by typing:

FLAG_TEST

into the chat. The bot won't answer that message and no credit is spent on it. The conversation is now hidden from your inbox.

This works from any device, on any installed widget, in any conversation. Use it when you can't predict your IP.

Where do test conversations show up?

Location Default How to view
Inbox Hidden (No toggle yet, by design, keeps it clean)
Performance dashboard Hidden Flip the Test conversations toggle to switch the view to test-only
Billing / credits Counted as normal Always counted

We don't filter test conversations out of billing on purpose: it keeps your credit usage in line with what the AI actually generated, and it stops accidental abuse of the flag.

API: is_test parameter

If you call our chatbot API directly, you can mark a conversation as test on the very first message by passing is_test: true in the JSON body:

{
  "message": "Hello",
  "conversation_id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "is_test": true
}

Once set on the first message of a thread, it sticks for the rest of that conversation. You can also send FLAG_TEST as the message value at any point to flip an existing conversation to test.

When to use this

  • Your team is testing knowledge-base updates from the office
  • You're recording a demo and don't want the demo chats in real metrics
  • A developer is integration-testing the widget on a staging site
  • You want to dogfood your own bot without polluting your performance dashboard

When not to use this

  • Don't use it to hide real, problematic conversations. If a conversation went badly, the Performance dashboard is where you spot patterns and fix the bot.
  • Don't add a customer's IP to Test IPs to suppress their chats from the inbox. That's a misuse of the feature.