Control how it answers
Set the rules your bot answers by
When you finish, every switch on the Response rules tab is set your way, and you know what each one changes for a visitor.
Before you start
- You can sign in to your Adoomi dashboard and open your bot
- Your bot has been trained on at least one page or document, so a test question gets a real answer How to check
About 5 minutes. You’ll do four things:
- read what each switch changes
- set the three refusals
- set how it uses your pages
- save and ask a test question
Your bot's answer rules live in one place: Bot behaviour, on the Response rules tab. There are two groups. The first names topics your bot must refuse. The second decides how tightly it sticks to the pages and documents you trained it on.
| Option | Best for |
|---|---|
| The Response rules tab | Setting each rule on its own. This is the full set, and the only place where the three refusals are separate switches. |
| The setup steps on Bots | A first pass while you are still setting the bot up. One switch, Refuse risky advice, covers all three refusals at once. |
The three refusals
| Switch | What the visitor gets when it is on | Starts as |
|---|---|---|
| No medical advice | Your bot does not diagnose, suggest treatment, or advise on doses. It tells the visitor to speak to a qualified healthcare professional. | Off |
| No legal advice | Your bot does not give legal advice. It tells the visitor to speak to a qualified solicitor. | Off |
| No financial advice | Your bot does not advise on money, investments or tax. It tells the visitor to speak to a qualified financial adviser. | Off |
Under those three sits Custom constraints (one per line). Type any other rule in your own words — one per line, up to 20 lines. "Never quote a price that is not on our website" is a good one. Each line is handed to the assistant alongside the three refusals above.
How tightly it sticks to your pages
| Switch | What the visitor gets when it is on | Starts as |
|---|---|---|
| Strict to sources (recommended) | Answers come only from what you trained it on. Ask about something your pages do not cover and the visitor gets your fallback message instead of a guess. The setup steps call this same switch Stay on-topic. | On |
| Cite sources | Up to three links sit under the answer, each pointing at the page it came from. The setup steps call this same switch Show sources. | Off |
| Fallback to general knowledge | Nothing at all, while Strict to sources (recommended) is on. It counts only once strict is off, and then it lets the bot fill a gap from what the model already knows. | Off |
Set the rules and save
In the left sidebar, click Bots.
Click your bot's row in the list.
That opens General settings, and the bot's own sidebar appears down the left.
In the bot sidebar, under Bot setup, click Bot behaviour.
The page opens on the Response rules tab.
Under Guardrails, tick the refusals your business needs.
Tick none of them if none apply. An untouched switch refuses nothing.
In Custom constraints (one per line), type any other rule, one per line.
The box tells you the limit: One constraint per line. Max 20.
Under Knowledge behaviour, set the three switches the way the table above describes.
Click Save.
Saved. Changes are live for new conversations. appears beside the button, and the next answer your bot gives uses the new rules.
Four trades get a rule you cannot switch off
Four templates carry a fixed safety notice on every answer: Healthcare / Clinic, Plumber / Heating Engineer, Electrician and Accountant / Bookkeeper. It is the Gas Safe line for plumbers, the not-medical-advice line for clinics, and so on. The switches above cannot remove it, and neither can a rewritten prompt. Templates covers which template your bot uses.
If it didn’t work
The bot still answers medical, legal or money questions
- Check
- Open Bot behaviour and read the three switches under Guardrails. Check them here, on the Response rules tab. The setup steps show one combined switch, so a single refusal can look off there even when it is on.
- Fix
- Tick the refusal you need, click Save, then ask again in a new chat window. If it still answers, add a line to Custom constraints (one per line) naming the exact thing to refuse, in your own words.
- Resolved when
- The bot declines and points the visitor at a professional instead.
The bot said something that isn't on my website
- Check
- Open Bot behaviour and read Strict to sources (recommended) under Knowledge behaviour.
- Fix
- Turn it on and click Save. Answers then come only from what you trained the bot on, and anything else gets your fallback message. If it is already on and the bot still invents detail, the page it drew on probably says something you did not expect. Find that answer in Chat review and read the page it cited.
- Resolved when
- Questions your pages do not cover get your fallback message instead of an answer.
Cite sources is on but no links appear under the answer
- Check
- Look at what the answer came from. Links can only point at web pages. An uploaded document, a spreadsheet or pasted text has no web address, so answers from those carry no link.
- Fix
- If the same content is on your website, add that page as a web source and retrain. Answers from it then carry the link. If it only exists as a document, there is nothing to link to. The answer stays link-free, and that is working as built.
- Resolved when
- An answer taken from a crawled page carries a short Sources line with up to three links.
My extra rules stop at 20 lines
- Check
- Read the placeholder in the box: One constraint per line. Max 20. Lines past the twentieth are dropped as you type, without a warning.
- Fix
- Keep the 20 that matter and fold near-duplicates into one line. "Never quote prices or delivery dates that are not on our website" does the work of two. Anything about what to say when the bot is stuck belongs on the fallback message instead.
- Resolved when
- Reload the tab and every line you typed reads back in the box.
I changed a switch and nothing happened
- Check
- Look at the button at the bottom of the tab. When No changes sits beside it, nothing has been edited on the tab you are looking at, and the button stays greyed out.
- Fix
- Flip the switch, check the button turns dark, then click Save. Reload the page and read the switch back. If it reads back the old way, email hello@adoomi.ai and tell us which bot and which switch.
- Resolved when
- The line beside the button reads Saved. Changes are live for new conversations. and the switch survives a reload.
What this can’t do
- Refuse risky advice on the setup steps is all three refusals at once. Turn on just one of them on the Response rules tab and the setup switch reads off, even though a refusal is live.
- Fallback to general knowledge does nothing while Strict to sources (recommended) is on.
- Source links come from crawled web pages only. An answer taken from an uploaded document, a spreadsheet or pasted text carries no link.
- At most three links show under an answer, however many pages it drew on.
- Custom constraints (one per line) holds 20 lines of up to 500 characters each. Extra lines are dropped as you type.
- These rules shape what the assistant says. Nothing inspects the finished answer afterwards, so they are not a hard block.