Bolnee-Chat

Chatbot integration in your business website. Self hosted, free forever!

Bolnee-Chat is a self-hosted RAG chatbot platform. Create a bot, add your website + PDFs as knowledge, pick any OpenAI-compatible provider (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Groq, Ollama, vLLM), and embed a 2-line snippet. Answers are grounded in your sources with citations, visitor chats are grouped and exportable, and everything runs on your infrastructure with SQLite.

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Why Bolnee-Chat?

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All Features

Also in the box:

• Knowledge management — lists locator · type · status · error · date with delete; append more via Add knowledge.
• Avatar file storage — data URLs converted to /api/public/avatar/:id (2MB limit, data/avatars/).
• Encrypted provider keys — per-bot apiKey/baseUrl/model via AES-256-GCM, never exposed in snippet.
• Dark-mode console — #020617 bg, #1e293b cards, slate-800 inputs, no white surfaces.

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Workflow

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Requirements

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Tech Stack

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Installation

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/AniketWathore/bolnee-chat.git
cd bolnee-chat

# Env
cp .env.example .env
# edit .env — simplest self-hosted:
# DISABLE_AUTH=true
# JWT_SECRET=change-me-32-chars
# LLM_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1   # optional global fallback
# LLM_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-...                     # optional global fallback
# LLM_MODEL=inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-fin:free

# Install
npm install

# Python crawler deps (optional)
pip install aiohttp beautifulsoup4 lxml requests brotli

# Verify
npm run lint    # tsc --noEmit
npm run build   # vite + esbuild → dist/
npm run dev     # http://localhost:3000 (auto-fallback to 3001 if busy)

SQLite is created at data/bolnee.db (git-ignored). Crawled sites → data/{chatbotId}_website.json, chunks in SQLite.

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Usage — Dashboard Flow

1. Create chatbot — + New chatbot → name + avatar (preview ≤2MB).
2. Add knowledge — enter https://your-site.com and/or upload PDF/TXT/MD/DOCX/FAQ → status queued → indexed.
3. Configure provider — choose provider → Fetch models → pick model → Save. Keys encrypted, not in embed.
4. Embed — copy snippet from Overview:

<script>
  window.BotConfig = {
    botName: "Customer Bot",
    avatar: "https://your-domain/api/public/avatar/BOT_ID",
    chatUrl: "https://your-domain/api/public/chat/BOT_ID",
    accentColor: "#111111",
    greeting: "Hi! How can I help?",
    theme: "dark"
  };
</script>
<script src="https://your-domain/chatbot-widget.js" async></script>

Paste before </body>. Widget stores VISITOR_ID + chat history in localStorage; greeting shows once.

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Bot Console Reference

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API Reference

Streaming: public/chatbot-widget.js:311 reads SSE via getReader(), falls back to text() + SW bypass for locked streams. Visitor grouping via X-Visitor-Id (VISITOR_ID in localStorage).

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File Reference

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Hosting

Dashboard is fully API-driven (/api/* relative) and auto-configures window.location.origin for embed URLs.

Vercel:

# env
DISABLE_AUTH=true
# JWT_SECRET not required for simple mode

# vercel.json already: rewrites /api/:path* → /api, /(.*) → /index.html, outputDirectory: dist
npm run build && vercel --prod

Cloudflare Pages / Workers:

# wrangler.toml: bucket = "./dist", DISABLE_AUTH=true
npm run build
wrangler pages deploy dist
# or: npx wrangler deploy

Chat endpoint streams SSE; for external sites use public https:// chatUrl (not localhost).

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Configuration

.env.example documents all.

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Troubleshooting

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Verification Checklist

npm run lint      # tsc --noEmit clean
npm run build     # vite + esbuild → dist/
npm run dev       # http://localhost:3000
# Manual:
# 1. Create bot → avatar preview → Save appearance → preview updates
# 2. Add knowledge: URL + PDF → status queued → indexed
# 3. Provider → Fetch models → pick :free → Save
# 4. Overview → Copy embed → paste in plain HTML → widget loads, greeting once, close/open keeps history, dark/light/auto themes correct
# 5. Chats → grouped by visitor → CSV/JSON/PDF export
# 6. Settings → default/fallback messages → Chat without sources returns fallback

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License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.