AI featuresAsk Fern

Overview

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Ask Fern is Fern’s AI Search feature, powered by Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), that indexes your documentation and provides an interface for your end users to ask questions and get answers. Responses include citations that link directly to source pages.

Ask Fern appears as a side panel that works with all Fern Docs layouts and stays open as users navigate between pages. Responses are filtered by version, product, and role.

Get started

1

Enable in the Dashboard

Open the Fern Dashboard. Navigate to the Settings tab and click Enable on the Ask AI card.

Enabling Ask Fern triggers an automatic reindex of your content. This typically takes a few minutes, though sites with extensive custom components may take longer. Once this process is finished, the Ask Fern side panel will appear on your site.

2

Connect Slack or Discord

Connect Ask Fern to Slack or Discord so your users can ask questions directly from chat.

3

Customize your configuration (optional)

Finetune Ask Fern’s behavior:

Content sources

Add additional documents and websites.

Guidance

Override responses to sensitive queries.

Features

Ask Fern comes with built-in tools to help you understand how users interact with your documentation and ensure answers are accurate and trustworthy.

View queries and conversations per day in the Fern Dashboard. Drill down into individual conversations and export data to CSV.

You can open Ask Fern (example) or the search dialog (example) directly from a URL using query parameters. This is useful for linking from a help chat widget, support portal, or onboarding flow.

# Open Ask Fern side panel with a prompt
https://{{PAGE_URL}}?searchType={{SEARCH_TYPE}}&query={{QUERY1}}
# Open search with a query
https://{{PAGE_URL}}?query={{QUERY2}}
ParameterDescription
queryThe search query or prompt, URL-encoded.
searchTypeOptional. Set to ai to open the Ask AI panel, or omit to open regular search.

Ask Fern automatically respects the role-based access control (RBAC) settings configured in your documentation. When users query Ask Fern, they only receive answers from documentation they have permission to access based on their assigned roles.

This works at all levels, from entire sections down to individual pages and conditional content within pages.