Your agent does not guess its answers. When a visitor asks a question, it searches what you have given it, builds its answer from that content, and cites its sources. If it finds nothing, it says so rather than making something up.

Training it therefore means filling three building blocks well: the knowledge base (what it knows), the product catalog (what it sells) and the guidance (how it behaves). This guide explains what each block is, what goes where, and how to set everything up step by step.

Which information goes where?

This is the question to ask before adding anything. The rule is simple:

You want the agent to...	It happens in...
Know your shipping, returns, warranties, your brand, your guides	Knowledge base
Recommend your products, answer about a price, a size, a stock level	Product catalog (automatic)
Highlight a product in a specific case ("for a gift, suggest X")	Knowledge base, with a targeted snippet
Adopt a tone, follow a rule ("never promise a refund")	Guidance

One way to remember it: knowledge says what to answer, the catalog says what to sell, guidance says how to behave.

Block 1: the knowledge base

What it is. Your agent's memory: everything it is allowed to say about your brand. When a visitor asks a question, the agent searches it, builds the answer from what it finds there, and cites its source. What is not in it does not exist for the agent: that is your guarantee it never says anything you have not approved.

The four source types, and when to use each

The article. Content written directly in Humind, with a real editor. It is the right format for your policies (shipping, returns), your guides and your help pages. Articles can also be published to your public help center: one content, two uses.

The document. A PDF you upload: print catalog, manual, spec sheet, terms and conditions. Humind extracts the text and makes it searchable. Handy when the content already exists elsewhere and you do not want to rewrite it.

The web page. A URL from your site (or elsewhere) that Humind reads and imports. The page is then monitored: if its content changes, the version the agent knows is refreshed. The ideal format for content that already lives on your site and is maintained there.

The snippet. A short, direct answer, like an FAQ entry. It has two uses:

• the general snippet, which answers a frequent question ("do you offer gift wrapping?");
• the snippet targeted at products or collections, which attaches to the relevant product pages: the agent sees it whenever it talks about those products. It is the right tool for sales arguments and special cases ("this serum is not suitable for sensitive skin").

Organize, publish, control visibility

• Folders organize your sources by theme (Shipping, Products, Support...). They also become the categories of your help center if you publish one.
• Status: a draft source is invisible to the agent; a published source is usable immediately. You can prepare content quietly before activating it.
• Visibility: each source can be public (showable to visitors, for instance in the help center) or private (the agent uses it to answer, but the document itself is never shown). Your internal snippets and documents stay private by default.
• Active period: a source can be active only between two dates. Useful for a Christmas offer or temporary terms.

If you are on Shopify

Your Shopify pages and blog articles can sync automatically into the knowledge base: they arrive in their own folders and keep themselves up to date. Nothing to copy over.

Where to start

Take your ten most frequent support questions. For each one, check that a source answers it clearly. This single exercise covers most real conversations. Then complete with your policy pages (shipping, returns, warranty), which are what visitors ask about most.

Open the knowledge base

Block 2: the product catalog

What it is. A living copy of your store: your products with their descriptions, variants, prices and stock levels, imported automatically and kept in sync continuously. This block is what lets the agent recommend the right product, compare two references, answer "is this available in size M?" and add to cart directly in the conversation. There is nothing for you to import.

What to check, once:

1. Your key products are there, with correct descriptions. The agent answers with what the product page contains: a poor page gives poor answers.
2. Nothing sticks out. If some products should not be suggested by the agent (internal products, old references), deindex them from their page: they stay in your store but leave the agent's scope.
3. A product deserves specific context? That is the use case for the targeted snippet seen above: the information attaches to the product page without changing your store.

View my catalog

Block 3: the guidance

What it is. Your agent's behavior brief: the tone, the languages, the rules to follow and what it must never promise. It is the same brief you would give a new salesperson on day one. Guidance does not change what the agent knows, it changes how it uses it.

Everything is configured without writing code:

• Personality: pick the tone from the list (warm, expert, direct...). It is the general character of every answer.
• Answer length: short and efficient, or more developed.
• Emojis: allowed or not.
• Language: by default, the agent answers in the visitor's language. You can force a single language if needed.
• Answer rules: your business rules, each with a title and an instruction, enabled or disabled in one click. A few examples that work well:
  • "Never promise a refund, direct to the contact form."
  • "Always mention free shipping from €50."
  • "For gift advice, ask about the budget first."
• Moderation: define how the agent reacts to off-topic or inappropriate messages.

The classic trap: putting everything in the guidance. If your rule contains factual information ("returns are accepted within 30 days"), that information belongs in the knowledge base; the rule states the behavior ("always mention the return window when returns come up"). Short, precise guidance beats a page of generalities.

Set up the guidance

Test before your customers do

Ask your agent the questions your customers really ask, including the tricky ones: a question whose answer does not exist yet, a refund request, a comparison between two products.

For each answer, look at the cited sources: it is the fastest way to understand why the agent answered that. A good answer with the right source is validated. An off-target answer, and the source tells you what to fix.

Improve continuously: the loop

Training does not stop on day one. The routine that makes your agent better every week comes down to three moves:

1. Spot the gaps. Your analytics group questions by theme: a frequent theme the agent answers poorly or not at all is your next content to create.
2. Fill with the right tool. Missing information → a source in the knowledge base. A special case on a product → a targeted snippet. A behavior to change → a rule in the guidance.
3. Check by asking the question again, then move to the next gap.

An answer you dislike in production? Go back to its cited source, fix or complete that source, and the agent will answer better from the next conversation on.

The final checklist

• My ten most frequent support questions each have a source that answers them
• My shipping, returns and warranty pages are in the knowledge base
• My key products have complete pages, products to exclude are deindexed
• Tone and answer length are set, my business rules are written
• I tested my tricky questions
• I know where to look each week to spot the gaps