Build a Customer Support Bot

In this tutorial, you will create an autonomous agent that monitors a community forum for unanswered support questions, drafts helpful responses, and presents them for your review.

Time: 15 minutes Requirements: Pro plan or higher, one connected forum site

What You Will Build

An agent that:

1. Searches the forum for threads tagged "support" with zero replies
2. Reads each thread to understand the question
3. Drafts a helpful response based on the thread content
4. Outputs all drafts as a report for human review (does not post automatically)

Step 1: Connect Your Forum

If you have not already connected your forum:

1. Go to Sites > Add Site.
2. Enter the forum URL and paste your API token.
3. Verify the connection — you should see tools like xenforo.searchThreads, xenforo.getThread, etc.

Step 2: Create the Agent

1. Go to Agents > New Agent.
2. Fill in the configuration:

Field	Value
Name	Support Response Drafter
Description	Finds unanswered support threads and drafts responses
Model	Claude Sonnet 4.6 (or your preferred model)
Sites	Select your forum site
Max Rounds	5
Trigger	Manual (for testing; change to Scheduled later)

3. Enter the system prompt:

You are a customer support assistant for our community forum.

TASK:
1. Search for threads in the "Support" category that were 
   created in the last 24 hours and have zero replies.
2. For each unanswered thread (up to 5):
   a. Read the full thread content.
   b. Draft a helpful, professional response that:
      - Acknowledges the user's issue
      - Provides a clear solution or troubleshooting steps
      - Offers to follow up if the issue persists
3. Output a Markdown report with all drafted responses.

RULES:
- Do NOT post any replies. Only draft them for review.
- Be polite and professional in all drafts.
- If a thread is unclear, note what clarification is needed.
- If you cannot find any unanswered threads, report that.

OUTPUT FORMAT:
For each thread, output:
- Thread title and URL
- Author and creation date
- Summary of the question
- Your drafted response
- Confidence level (high/medium/low)

4. Click Create.

Step 3: Run a Test

1. On the Agents page, click Run Now next to your new agent.
2. Go to Agents > Support Response Drafter > Runs.
3. Click the active run to watch it in real time.

You will see the agent:

1. Call xenforo.searchThreads with parameters for the Support category and zero replies.
2. Call xenforo.getThread for each unanswered thread found.
3. Generate a Markdown report with drafted responses.

Step 4: Review the Output

The run timeline shows each step. The final step contains the agent's output — a report like:

# Support Response Drafts — May 11, 2026

## Thread: "Cannot reset my password"
- Author: user_jane | Created: 2026-05-11 08:15
- Question: User is unable to receive the password reset email.

**Drafted Response:**
Hi Jane, sorry to hear you are having trouble with the password 
reset. Here are a few things to check:

1. Look in your spam/junk folder for the reset email.
2. Make sure you are using the email address associated with 
   your account.
3. Try requesting the reset again — sometimes there is a delay.

If none of these help, let me know and I can assist further.

- Confidence: High

---

## Thread: "API rate limiting errors"
- Author: dev_bob | Created: 2026-05-11 09:30
- Question: Getting 429 errors when calling the API rapidly.

**Drafted Response:**
Hi Bob, the API has a rate limit of 60 requests per minute. 
If you are hitting 429 errors, consider:

1. Adding a delay between requests (1 second minimum).
2. Implementing exponential backoff on retries.
3. Batching requests where possible.

See our API docs for the full rate limit details.

- Confidence: High

Step 5: Set Up Scheduling

Once you are satisfied with the output quality:

1. Edit the agent.
2. Change the trigger to Scheduled.
3. Select a schedule preset — for example, Every hour or a custom cron expression like 0 */2 * * * (every 2 hours).
4. Save.

The agent will now run automatically and produce reports at the scheduled interval.

Step 6: Monitor and Iterate

• Check Agents > Support Response Drafter > Runs periodically to review drafts.
• Monitor credit consumption in Analytics.
• Adjust the system prompt based on the quality of drafts:
  • If drafts are too generic, add more context about your product
  • If the agent is reading too many threads, reduce the limit in the prompt
  • If responses need a specific tone, add tone guidelines to the prompt

Cost Estimate

With Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 5 max rounds:

• Per run: approximately 10-20 credits (depends on thread count and length)
• Hourly schedule: ~240-480 credits/day
• Daily schedule: ~10-20 credits/day

TIP

For cost savings, switch to Claude Haiku 4.5 for monitoring and only use Claude Sonnet 4.6 for response drafting. Or use BYOK to bypass credit costs entirely.

Next Steps

• Modify the agent to post approved responses automatically (add write permissions and update the prompt)
• Create a second agent that handles escalations (threads older than 48 hours with no reply)
• Set up a webhook trigger to run the agent immediately when a new thread is created