personas-and-web-chat-widget
Personas & Web Chat Widget
Personas let you create named, public-facing AI assistants that can be embedded on any website as a chat widget — no login required for end users. This is ideal for customer support bots, FAQ assistants, or any scenario where you want to offer AI assistance to visitors on a web page.
Accessing Persona Management
Go to Settings → Personas in the top navigation.
What is a Persona?
A persona is a lightweight, public-facing AI identity. It has:
- A name and description (visible to end users)
- A greeting message (shown when the widget first opens)
- An associated agent (which drives its behaviour and tools)
- A Public ID used to identify it in embedded widgets
Personas are separate from your internal agents — they are designed to be publicly accessible and can be embedded in external websites.
Creating a Persona
- Go to Settings → Personas
- Click New Persona
- Fill in:
- Name – the display name visible to users (e.g. "Aria Support")
- Description – a short description of the persona's role
- Greeting – the first message the widget shows (e.g. "Hi! How can I help you today?")
- Agent – select which Ariadne agent powers this persona
- Click Save
Making a Persona Public
A persona must be marked as public before it can be embedded on an external website.
- Open the persona in Settings → Personas
- Check the Make Public checkbox
- A Public ID is automatically generated
- Set an Allowed Origins list (optional but recommended for security — see below)
- Optionally configure a Rate Limit (requests per minute per visitor)
- Click Save
Once public, the persona is accessible via the Ariadne API without authentication.
Embedding the Chat Widget
After making a persona public, Ariadne generates an embed snippet you can paste into any HTML page.
Copy the Embed Snippet
- Open the persona in Settings → Personas
- Scroll to the Embed Widget section
- Click Copy Snippet
The snippet looks like this:
<script
src="https://your-ariadne-instance.com/widget/ariadne-chat.js"
data-persona-id="your-public-persona-id"
data-api-base="https://your-ariadne-instance.com">
</script>
Paste into Your Website
Add this snippet to the <body> of any HTML page where you want the chat widget to appear. No other dependencies are needed.
What the Widget Does
When a visitor loads your page:
- A floating chat button appears in the bottom-right corner
- When clicked, a chat panel opens as an iframe
- The visitor can type messages and receive responses from your persona
- No login or Ariadne account is required for the visitor
- Each visitor session is independent
The widget is lightweight and loads lazily — it only fetches the chat interface when the visitor clicks the button.
Security Settings
Allowed Origins
The Allowed Origins field restricts which domains can embed the widget. For example:
https://www.mycompany.com
https://docs.mycompany.com
If left empty, the widget is accessible from any origin (not recommended for production).
Rate Limiting
Set a Rate Limit (requests per minute) to prevent abuse. The default is unrestricted. A sensible limit for a customer support widget might be 10–20 requests per minute per visitor.
Managing Personas
From Settings → Personas you can:
- Edit any persona's details
- Disable public access by unchecking the Public checkbox
- Regenerate the Public ID to invalidate existing embeds (useful if you need to revoke access)
- Delete a persona when it is no longer needed
Public Persona API
For developers who want to integrate more deeply, the public persona API is accessible without authentication:
| Endpoint | Method | Description |
|---|---|---|
/api/public/v1/persona/{publicId} |
GET | Fetch persona name and greeting |
/api/public/v1/persona/{publicId}/chat |
POST | Send a message and receive a response |
Session continuity is managed client-side via a session token stored in the browser.
Use Cases
- Customer support – embed a support assistant on your product website
- FAQ bot – answer common questions without human intervention
- Onboarding assistant – guide new users through your product
- Internal helpdesk – embed on an intranet for employee self-service
- Documentation helper – let users ask questions about your docs directly on the docs site
Personas vs. Agents
| Persona | Agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | External visitors (no login) | Authenticated Ariadne users |
| Accessed via | Embeddable widget / public API | Ariadne UI, Console, Desktop |
| Authentication | None required | Ariadne account required |
| Persistence | Session-based (visitor's browser) | Full conversation history |