---
title: "Bot settings reference"
description: "Every setting on your bot's General settings tab - what it does, its default and range, and which plans include it."
canonical_url: "https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/settings-reference"
last_updated: "2026-09-25"
---

# Bot settings reference

All of these settings are on your bot's **General settings** tab, which team owners and admins can open. Change a setting, then click **Update bot** at the bottom of the page to save.

Most settings can also be changed from an AI assistant with the [`update_bot` MCP tool](https://chatthing.ai/docs/mcp/tools). The field names match the setting names in the tables below.

## General settings

| Setting | What it does | Default | Plans |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Bot name** | The bot's name. | - | All |
| **Bot description (markdown supported)** | Shown only on the bot's landing page. It is **not** sent to the AI model: put instructions in **Prompt**. | Empty | All |
| **Welcome message** | The first message people see before they type anything. Required. | - | All |
| **Example questions** | Suggested questions people can click to start a chat. Up to 10. | None | All |
| **Prompt** | The bot's instructions: its role, tone, rules and what to do when it can't help. Blank uses the default prompt. **Generate with AI** writes one for you. See [write your bot's instructions](https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/instructions). | Default prompt | All |
| **Allow users to provide feedback on responses** | Shows thumbs up and thumbs down buttons on each reply in the chat widget. Ratings appear in [conversations](https://chatthing.ai/docs/manage/conversations), where you can filter by them. | Off | All |
| **Include sources for responses** | Shows numbered links to the web pages an answer actually used under each reply in the chat widget, with matching numbers in the reply text. Only website data sources are shown. | Off | All |
| **Allow human takeover of conversations** | Lets your team claim a live website chat and reply as themselves. Only for chats started in the website widget. Works best with the [Talk to a human](https://chatthing.ai/docs/power-ups/talk-to-a-human) power-up. See [human takeover](https://chatthing.ai/docs/manage/human-takeover). | Off | Standard, Pro, Enterprise |

Older bots show **System message**, **Use our default prompt** and **Initial prompt** instead of a single **Prompt**. See [migrating to a single prompt](https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/instructions#i-see-system-message-and-initial-prompt-instead-of-prompt).

## Model settings (advanced)

We recommend leaving these at their defaults until you've tested your bot.

| Setting | What it does | Default | Range | Plans |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Model** | The AI model that writes replies. See [models](https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/models). | Default model | - | Standard, Pro, Enterprise (others use the default) |
| **Enable file upload (multi-modal)** | Lets people attach images in the chat widget: PNG, JPG and WebP, up to 20 MB each. Only shown for models that support vision. | Off | On / off | All |
| **Enhanced knowledge retrieval** | Rewrites follow-up questions into standalone questions before searching your knowledge. Uses more tokens. See [retrieval settings](https://chatthing.ai/docs/knowledge/retrieval-settings). | Off | On / off | All |
| **Creativity (temperature)** | How varied replies are. Lower values give consistent, focused answers that stick to your content and prompt; higher values give more varied answers but make the bot more likely to fill gaps or make things up. | 0.3 | 0–1 | All |
| **Document relevance** | How closely content must match a message before the bot is given it. See [retrieval settings](https://chatthing.ai/docs/knowledge/retrieval-settings). | 0.75 | 0.25–0.9 | All |
| **Document character limit** | The size of each piece your content is split into when it syncs. See [retrieval settings](https://chatthing.ai/docs/knowledge/retrieval-settings). | 2,000 | 1,000–4,000 | All |
| **Max context size (base tokens)** | The token budget for each reply's prompt, knowledge and conversation history. Higher can improve answers but uses more tokens. | Set by the model | 1,024 to the model's maximum | All |
| **Max context documents** | How many pieces of your content the bot is given per message. `0` turns knowledge retrieval off. See [retrieval settings](https://chatthing.ai/docs/knowledge/retrieval-settings). | 4 or 6 | 0–12 | All |
| **Max message history** | How many earlier messages in the conversation the bot sees. Lower uses fewer tokens but the bot remembers less. | 12 | 0–50 | All |

## Usage limits

Limits that stop a bot using too many tokens or being abused. See [usage limits](https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/usage-limits) for what people see when a limit is reached.

| Setting | What it does | Default |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Daily token limit** | Stops the bot replying once it has used this many message tokens in a day (UTC). | Off, 1,000,000 |
| **Set an email notification threshold** | Emails team owners and admins when the bot's daily usage passes this number. Must be lower than the daily limit. | 750,000 |
| **Maximum message length** / **Maximum characters per message** | Rejects any single message longer than this. | On, 6,000 characters for new bots |

## Transfer ownership

Moves the bot to another team. Only shown if you belong to more than one team. You need to be a member of the new team with permission to create bots, and the team needs space for another bot on its plan. See [teams](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/teams).

## Delete bot

**Delete bot** at the bottom of the page permanently removes the bot and all of its data. This can't be undone. To keep a copy first, [duplicate the bot](https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/duplicate-a-bot).

## Related

- [Write your bot's instructions](https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/instructions): Write the prompt that sets your bot's role, topics, tone, answer length, language, power-up use and handoff, with before-and-after examples.
- [Retrieval settings](https://chatthing.ai/docs/knowledge/retrieval-settings): Control how much of your knowledge your bot reads for each message - document relevance, context documents, enhanced retrieval, sources and chunk size.
- [Limit how many tokens your bot can use](https://chatthing.ai/docs/bot-settings/usage-limits): Cap a bot's daily message token use, get an email before it hits the cap, limit message length, and see what people see when a limit is reached.