AI assistants

Psalmly ships two AI assistants on top of the same retrieval foundation. They share one per-church monthly quota and never invent facts — every claim is backed by a citation.

How do I ask the assistant a question?

Sign in to the member portal or open your church's public site. The chat bubble appears in the bottom corner. Type a question — "When's our next service?", "Where do we meet?", "What does the youth ministry page say?" — and the assistant answers with links to the page, event, or church detail it read.

If the assistant doesn't have an answer, it will tell you so rather than guess. Add the missing fact (Site content → Identity / About / Ministry pages, or add an event in Scheduling) and ask again.

What does the assistant know about my church?

The consumer assistant (members + anonymous visitors on your public site) reads:

The public Site content — Identity intro, About copy, every Ministry page, Important links, Service times.
Every upcoming event.
Your church's identity — name, denomination, location, address.

The admin assistant (admins only, in the admin shell) reads everything the consumer assistant reads plus:

The Psalmly product documentation — how to set up Stripe, run a check-in, send a broadcast, etc.

So an admin can ask "what does our daycare ministry page say?" and "how do I add a giving fund?" in the same conversation and get answers with the right kind of citation for each.

What happens when the assistant doesn't have an answer?

It never dead-ends. The assistant is grounded — it only states facts your church has actually published, and never invents a service, date, price, name, link, or phone number. But when it doesn't have something, it doesn't just say "I don't know" — it points to a next step instead:

Missing detail → it says so warmly and hands the person to your team's contact details.
Nothing on a specific date → it pivots to what is coming up and points to your calendar (the assistant knows today's date in your timezone, so it can reason about "this weekend" or "anything in July?").
Pastoral, personal, or crisis → it responds with care and directs the person to a real human (and, for an emergency, to local emergency services) — it won't give pastoral, medical, or legal advice.

If the assistant should know something but doesn't, the usual causes are:

The fact isn't in any Site content field, event, or church detail. Add it under the appropriate Site content section.
A new ministry page or About edit was just saved and the assistant hasn't reindexed yet. Wait a few seconds and try again — ingestion runs on every save.

Can the admin assistant do things it isn't built for yet?

It'll tell you plainly. The admin copilot knows its own toolset — it can propose actions like creating an event, fund, group, or announcement (on paid plans) — and when you ask for something outside that (say, building a registration form), it says what it can't do, points you to the right screen, and offers the closest thing it can (e.g. "I can create the event, then you add registration fields under Events → Registration"). It only ever proposes an action you confirm — it never performs one on its own.

How often does the assistant reindex?

Within seconds of a save. Every edit to a Ministry page, About copy, Identity intro, Important link, Service time, or event triggers a re-embed of just that row's chunks. There is no scheduled cron, no overnight job — the assistant is always answering against the latest version of your content.

Product docs (admin assistant only) reindex on push to the Psalmly main branch — usually within minutes of a docs change going out.

How is usage counted?

Every question your church asks counts against one monthly allowance shared across:

Consumer chats (members and anonymous visitors).
Admin chats.

The allowance resets on the 1st of each month (UTC). Limits per plan are in billing.md. When you hit the cap, the assistants politely tell you to wait or upgrade.

What does my plan change about the AI assistants?

Your plan controls what the assistants can do and how much you can use them — not which model answers:

AI actions (the admin assistant taking actions, not just answering) unlock on the Community and Growth plans. On Starter the assistants answer questions but can't make changes.
A monthly usage allowance scales with your plan (see billing.md). When you hit the cap, the assistants politely tell you to wait or upgrade.

The chat model is chosen by the assistant's job, the same on every plan: both run on fast, grounded models tuned for accurate, cited answers, with an automatic backup model if the primary is briefly unavailable. Upgrading takes effect on your next question — no app restart, no waiting period.

How do I open the admin assistant?

Sign in as a church admin and look for the sparkle (✨) Ask button in the top bar of the admin shell. Open it and ask anything — about your church or about Psalmly itself.

The admin assistant is web-only. There is no mobile admin shell, so the sparkle button only shows up on the desktop / mobile-web admin views.

Can the admin assistant do things for me?

Yes — on the Community and Growth plans, the admin assistant can take actions, not just answer. Tell it what you want in plain language and it sets it up for you to confirm:

Schedule an event — "Add a youth night on July 23 at 7pm in the Main Hall."
Create a service — "Create a 9am Sunday service called Morning Worship."
Add a giving fund — "Set up a Missions fund."
Start a group — "Create a Young Adults small group."
Assign a volunteer — "Put Adam on sound for this Sunday's service." The assistant finds the person and the slot for you; if there's a scheduling conflict or a blockout, it shows the warning so you can decide.
Post an announcement — "Announce the potluck after church on Sunday," or schedule one: "Post an announcement next Monday at 9am that registration is open." Adds it to your announcements feed (publishing now or at the time you name), where members see it and can react. This one is undoable.
Send a church-wide broadcast — "Message everyone that Sunday is cancelled." An assistant broadcast lands in every member's in-app inbox — use it for things people must see now. (Adding a push notification or email to a broadcast is an opt-in choice in the full broadcast composer; the assistant sends to the inbox only.)

Nothing happens until you confirm. Every action appears as a card in the chat with a plain-language summary and Confirm / Cancel buttons. The assistant never changes anything on its own — it proposes, you approve.

Undo

After most actions, the card shows an Undo button. Created the wrong event or fund? One tap removes it. Undo is available for events, services, funds, groups, announcements, and volunteer assignments.

Broadcasts are the exception: once you confirm one, the message is already in every member's inbox and can't be recalled — so a broadcast has no Undo. The confirmation card shows the full message and reminds you it can't be unsent. Read it carefully before confirming.

When the assistant needs to check with you

If you ask it to assign "Adam" and there are two Adams, or to use "the Sunday service" when several are coming up, the assistant asks which one rather than guessing. Answer in the chat and it continues.

What the admin assistant still doesn't do

Even on a paid plan, some things stay manual for now:

Editing your public Site content or Ministry pages (planned).
Moving money, issuing refunds, or changing billing.
Changing church settings, permissions, or inviting/removing people.

On the Starter (free) plan the assistant answers questions but can't take actions — it'll point you to the right admin section instead. Upgrade to Community to unlock actions (billing.md).