Playground

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Overview

The Playground lets you preview and interact with your AI agent exactly as your end users would, and edit channel-specific settings while you watch the effect. When you open the Playground, it automatically loads the last channel you were working on from the Channels page. For example, if you last viewed the Chat bubble or Help page, the Playground opens that same channel so you can continue testing without switching views. Use the Playground to:

• Preview your AI agent’s behavior in real time
• Test conversations and responses
• Edit channel-specific settings, such as your AI agent’s style and capabilities, and immediately see how those changes affect the experience

To preview a different channel, click the channel name at the top of the page and pick one from the list, or choose View all channels to go to the Channels page.

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Tabs

The tabs available depend on which channel you are previewing. A web channel such as Chat bubble shows: Other channels expose a different set. Messenger, for example, replaces Voice with Leads, and the Slack channel uses Overview, Connections, Actions, and Extra Settings.

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Instructions and global instructions

On the Overview tab, Sync with global instructions controls whether this channel uses your AI agent’s global instructions or its own. Leave it on to keep every channel consistent; turn it off to write instructions that apply only to this channel.

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Chat as user

Chat as user starts a Playground conversation as an identified user of your choice, so you can see what a signed-in customer would see and test actions that only run for an identified user. Click Chat as user in the top right, then:

• User ID: the identifier the conversation runs under. A test ID is generated for you, and the refresh button beside the field generates a new one. Replace it with a real user ID to chat as that user.
• Metadata: a JSON object of details for that user. Edit the name and email, or add your own fields, then chat to see how your AI agent handles that user. Your AI agent reads these values, and actions receive them as {contact.*} variables.

Click Chat as user to start the conversation. This is the Playground equivalent of the details your site passes with identity verification, so it’s the fastest way to check how your AI agent greets and handles a known customer.

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Preview

Click Preview in the top-right to open your AI agent on a page of its own. The preview opens in a new tab and renders the AI agent on an otherwise empty page, so you can see and use it the way a visitor would instead of inside the Playground’s editing layout. You can share the preview URL with anyone in your workspace, which makes it a convenient way to collect feedback on your AI agent before deploying it. A toolbar at the top of the preview page controls how the page around your AI agent looks:

• Light and dark: switch the page background between light and dark to check your AI agent’s colors against both.
• Upload background: upload an image, such as a screenshot of your own website, to sit behind the AI agent. This shows how your AI agent will look in place on your site before you deploy it anywhere.

Everything else behaves as it would once deployed, including initial messages, suggested questions, the floating bubble and its label, and the full conversation.

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Deploying

Click Deploy in the top-right to get the code or connection details for the current channel. For the chat bubble, the dropdown offers:

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Limitations

• The Playground isn’t a real store or site session. Some actions behave differently there: cart updates don’t work, and payment completion isn’t reported back. Actions that need an identified customer, such as the Stripe actions, run only when you start the conversation with Chat as user. See Shopify Actions and Stripe Actions.

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Next steps