New Help Automation & Onboarding Intake Features (Dashboard v …)
New Help Automation & Onboarding Intake Features (Dashboard v …)
What’s new?
The dashboard now includes a Help Automation page that lets you connect a GitHub repository to usedocs so that PR / pull‑request events automatically create draft help‑center articles.
The onboarding wizard also asks a few intake questions (goal, audience, source, integrations) and saves the answers for future use.
1. Help Automation – connect your repo in a few clicks
Where to find it
- Open the Help Center from the left‑hand navigation.
- Click the Automation tab (the new tab appears next to Redirects).
What you can do
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Add / edit repository | Enter the GitHub repo you want usedocs to watch (e.g. myorg/my‑docs). |
| Skip automation | If you don’t want webhook‑driven drafts, toggle Skip – the UI will hide the secret and webhook fields. |
| Rotate secret | Generates a fresh GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET. Copy the new secret immediately – it is shown only once. |
| View webhook URL | The URL you must configure in your GitHub repo’s Settings → Webhooks. |
| Check verification status | The UI shows whether the webhook has been verified, when it was verified, and the timestamp of the last event received. |
Setting up the webhook in GitHub
- In your GitHub repo, go to Settings → Webhooks → Add webhook.
- Payload URL – paste the Webhook URL shown in the Automation tab.
- Content type – select
application/json. - Secret – paste the Secret you copied from the Automation tab.
- Which events would you like to trigger this webhook? – select Pull requests (and optionally Releases).
- Click Add webhook.
> Important: The secret is displayed only once. If you lose it, use the Rotate button to generate a new one and update the GitHub webhook.
What happens after the webhook is active
- When a PR is opened, merged, or a release is published, usedocs receives the event, creates a draft article (and a changelog entry) in the Help Center, and flags it for human review.
- Drafts are not published automatically – you must approve them in the Help Center before they go live.
2. Onboarding Intake – a quick questionnaire that tailors your setup
New questions shown during the first‑time wizard
| Question | Why we ask it |
|---|---|
| Goal – “What should usedocs do first?” | Determines whether you’re building a public help center, an internal knowledge base, etc. |
| Audience – “Who will read the docs?” | Helps us suggest default styling, branding, and access controls. |
| Source – “Where does your content live today?” | Lets us pre‑configure connectors (GitHub, Notion, etc.). |
| Integrations – “Which tools do you want to connect?” | Enables quick toggles for Slack, Zapier, etc. |
The answers are stored in localStorage under the key usedocs-intake-<botId> and are used when you finish the wizard (e.g., to pre‑fill the Automation page). If you clear your browser data, the intake will be lost and you’ll be prompted again.
How it appears in the UI
When the wizard finishes, a toast says “Setup complete — your bot is live.” If the wizard detected that you selected the “help” goal, the toast also points you to the Automation tab for the next step.
3. Behind the scenes – API & data model changes
| Endpoint | New / Updated |
|---|---|
GET /help/automation | Returns the current webhook configuration (webhookUrl, secret, verified, timestamps, etc.). |
POST /help/automation | Save or update the repo, skip flag, or rotate the secret. |
Bot stats (/api/bot/:id) | New fields: githubInstallationId, githubWebhookConfigured, `githubWebhookVerified |
_Drafted from merged PR: PR: Staging. Review before publish._