ChatPilot
Manual

ChatPilot manual

This manual explains ChatPilot from installing it to letting it answer on its own. Every page is about one task and names each setting exactly as the panel does.

The same manual comes with the app: in the panel, open Settings → Manual, or press Read more under a card's What's this?. That copy always matches the version you have installed, and it works without an internet connection.

Where to start

Something wrong or unclear on a page? Use Report a problem with this page at its bottom; it goes straight to the people who write ChatPilot.

  • Getting started: Install ChatPilot, link your accounts, choose what it may read and which AI it uses.
    • Install ChatPilot: What you need, and how to install ChatPilot on a Mac, on Windows or on Linux.
    • First start: Make your control bot, start ChatPilot in the background and follow the setup checklist.
    • The panel at a glance: The five areas of the panel, where the settings are and how to get around quickly.
    • Link WhatsApp: Link ChatPilot to your WhatsApp as a linked device by scanning a code with your phone.
    • Link Telegram: Sign ChatPilot in to your own Telegram account so your chats, groups and channels come into the inbox.
    • Link Slack: Connect a Slack workspace through a small Slack app of your own, so channels and direct messages come into the inbox.
    • Add a mailbox: Add your e-mail accounts (Gmail, iCloud, Outlook or any IMAP mailbox) so mail is sorted and answered in the same inbox as your chats.
    • Link iMessage and SMS: Bring your iMessage and SMS conversations into the inbox on a Mac.
    • Choose which chats ChatPilot may read: Switch chats, groups, channels and mail senders on, one by one or a whole app at once, and choose whether the AI may read them.
    • Choose the AI: Pick the AI that sorts your messages, writes drafts and answers your questions, and optionally a local model for private chats.
  • Daily use: The inbox, Today, reading and answering chats, drafts, discussions, follow-ups, people, labels, shortcuts and your phone.
    • The inbox: Your chats and mail from every app in one list, sorted by what needs you, and how to clear it.
    • Today and tasks: What needs you today in one page, your briefing, and the tasks ChatPilot spots in your chats.
    • Read a chat: What the chat screen shows, the buttons above it, what you can do with one message, and catching up on a busy chat.
    • Reply and approve drafts: Write a reply yourself or let ChatPilot draft it in your style; nothing is sent until you press Send.
    • Discuss a chat with ChatPilot: Ask ChatPilot privately what someone means, how to answer, or to file a ticket, without anything being sent.
    • Follow-ups and snooze: Put a chat away until later, get reminded when nobody answers, and let ChatPilot bring forgotten chats back by itself.
    • People and client cards: One person, all their chats; what ChatPilot knows about them, and how you correct it.
    • Labels, pins and mail filters: Group chats with your own labels, keep important ones on top, and let filters sort your mail.
    • Keyboard shortcuts: Go through your inbox, answer and clear chats without the mouse; jump anywhere with ⌘K.
    • On your phone: Approve drafts and get alerts through your Telegram bot, and open the whole panel on your phone, also away from home.
  • Auto-answer and safety: Letting ChatPilot answer by itself, how far it may go, rules, actions in connected systems, stop-loss, and seeing what it did.
    • Switch on auto-answer: Let ChatPilot answer one chat by itself, openly as your AI assistant, within limits you set.
    • Autonomy levels: Careful, Normal, Full or Always to me — how much auto-answer may answer by itself, per chat, person, tag or for new chats.
    • When ChatPilot writes first: Let auto-answer start a conversation now and then — a check-in, a birthday, a daily greeting — within strict limits.
    • Rules and away mode: "When something comes in, do something": away messages, pings, tasks, drafts, auto-answer and more, from Automation → Rules & auto-answer.
    • Actions in connected systems: ChatPilot only reads connected systems by itself; anything that changes something runs when you press Run on a card that shows what is sent.
    • Monitors and stop-loss: Let ChatPilot watch a connected system and tell you when something happens — and, if you allow it, pause the item that's losing money.
    • See what ChatPilot did: Every answer, held-back reply, rule and action is shown in the chat, on the rules page and in Telegram.
  • Connected systems: Connecting the tools you work with (a CRM, a helpdesk, an ad platform, a tracker, a calendar) so ChatPilot can read them, with a page for each system in the list.
    • Connect a system: Add a CRM, helpdesk, admin panel or other tool under Settings → Connected systems, so ChatPilot can look things up there.
    • Live data in a chat: Bind a chat to a connected system and say which account it is about, for the client card, drafts, reports and auto-answer's figures.
    • What ChatPilot understood: The kind of system, what an account is and which tool gives which figure, and how to correct it.
    • Any other system (MCP): Connect a system that isn't in the list through its MCP address, with a key, a sign-in or no key at all.
    • Zapier, Make, n8n and webhooks: For tools without an MCP server: define actions yourself and let ChatPilot post them as JSON to a webhook when you press Run.
    • Profiles, packs and REST APIs: What ChatPilot knows about a kind of system or one product, how to add a pack, and connecting a system that has a REST API but no MCP.
    • GitHub: Sign in with GitHub, send tickets to a repository as issues, or read issues and code through GitHub's MCP server.
    • Linear: Look up Linear issues and projects from a chat; creating an issue is an action you switch on.
    • Jira & Confluence (Atlassian): Look up Jira issues and Confluence pages, with your own Atlassian permissions.
    • Asana: Look up Asana tasks and projects from a chat.
    • Notion: Look up Notion pages and databases from a chat.
    • Intercom: Look up Intercom conversations, contacts and tickets next to a chat.
    • Sentry: Look up Sentry errors and issues from a chat.
    • Stripe: Look up Stripe customers, payments, invoices and subscriptions; anything with money asks twice.
    • HubSpot: Connect HubSpot's CRM with an MCP connector of your own: contacts, companies and deals next to a chat.
    • Google Calendar: Connect Google Calendar so auto-answer only offers times you are free; needs a Google Cloud project of your own.
    • GoAdserver: For ad networks on GoAdserver: your advertisers' and publishers' accounts next to their chats, read only.
    • Everflow: For affiliate networks on Everflow: an affiliate's clicks, conversions and payout next to their chat, read only.
    • Affise: For affiliate networks on Affise: a partner's clicks, conversions and balance next to their chat, read only.
    • Scaleo: For affiliate networks on Scaleo: an affiliate's clicks, conversions, payout and balance next to their chat, read only.
  • Team mode and reports: One ChatPilot for a whole team, sharing the work, the team overview, and pages of figures from your connected systems.
    • Set up team mode: Let several people work in one ChatPilot, each with their own sign-in and role.
    • Share the work: Give a chat to a member, share it, keep family chats private, leave notes for the team, and hand out tasks.
    • The team overview and when someone leaves: See how the team's work chats stand, per member and per partner, and hand someone's work over when they leave.
    • Report pages: Pages of live figures from your connected systems, described in your own words, with a Telegram digest and alerts on the numbers.
  • Account and licence: Your account on chat-pilot.ai, two-step sign-in, the licence, updates, backups and reporting a problem.
    • Your account on chat-pilot.ai: Sign in to chat-pilot.ai/account and find your licence, invoices, linked apps, keys and the problems you reported.
    • Two-step sign-in: Add a code from an app on your phone to your chat-pilot.ai sign-in, keep backup codes, and get back in when you lose your phone.
    • Licence and plans: Activate your licence key, see what your plan includes, move it to another computer, and what happens when a licence runs out.
    • Updates: See which version you have, install a new one with one click, or let updates install by themselves.
    • Backups: Nightly encrypted backups of everything ChatPilot knows, where to keep them, and how to restore one on a new computer.
    • Report a problem: Tell ChatPilot's makers about a problem or a wish from the app or the website, with screenshots and diagnostics you check first, and follow the answers.
    • Your settings in one file: settings.json holds the settings of the panel's cards: edit it as JSON, undo a save, change it by hand or copy it to another install.
  • For developers: ChatPilot's own MCP server, the tracker over MCP, writing a profile or pack, and describing a REST API.
    • Your inbox in Claude Code and other AI apps: Let an AI app on your computer read your chats through ChatPilot's own MCP server, with a key per app, and switch on what it may do.
    • Your reports over MCP: Read and answer the problems and wishes you reported from ChatPilot itself, Claude or another MCP app, with a key from your account.
    • Write a profile or a pack: The profile format: what an account is, which tool plays which role, the client card, monitors, reports and what auto-answer may read.
    • Describe a REST API: Connect a system that has a REST API but no MCP server, with an api block in a pack: read tools only, mapped answers, limits.
    • Move ChatPilot to a server and back: Take your chats, settings and logins from your computer to a server ChatPilot runs on all the time, or back again.
  • Troubleshooting and FAQ: What to do when something doesn't work, and answers to the questions people ask most.
    • Something isn't working: The usual problems, from a panel that won't open to an unlinked WhatsApp, and how to fix each one.
    • Questions people ask: Short answers about sending, privacy, the AI, WhatsApp, computers and connected systems, with a link to the full page.
    • What's new in each version: Which version you have, the main changes per version, and where to find every change day by day.

Checked against ChatPilot 0.1.0b1. Report a problem with this page