Zendesk AI Auto Responder

This template repo contains a NextJS app as well as bash scripts that will help you configure your zendesk workspace to use Inkeep to auto-respond to new tickets using your Inkeep project.

Quick Setup

1. Deploy to Vercel using the button below and provide the required environment variables:

Required environment variables:

• ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN: Your Zendesk subdomain (e.g., if your Zendesk URL is mycompany.zendesk.com, enter 'mycompany')
• ZENDESK_API_TOKEN: Generate at Zendesk API token docs
• ZENDESK_API_USER: Email address of your Zendesk user
• AUTO_RESPONDER_INKEEP_API_KEY: Your Inkeep API key
• ZENDESK_WEBHOOK_SECRET: A secret key for the Zendesk webhook docs

Optional:

• AI_AGENT_USER_ID: The User ID you'd like the AI bot to have if leaving internal comments
• ENABLE_PUBLIC_RESPONSES: Set to "true" to make AI responses visible to customers (defaults to internal responses only)

2. Copy .env.sample to .env and fill in all required values

3. Run the setup script to create the Zendesk webhook and trigger:

chmod +x ./setup.sh
./setup.sh

Troubleshooting

Webhook/Trigger Issues

If you experience problems with the webhook or trigger:

1. Manually deactivate them in Zendesk:

   • Visit https://YOUR-SUBDOMAIN.zendesk.com/admin/objects-rules/rules/triggers
   • Replace YOUR-SUBDOMAIN with your Zendesk subdomain

2. Or run the cleanup script to remove the trigger/webhook pair:

chmod +x ./cleanup.sh
./cleanup.sh

Debug Mode

By default, the AI Autoresponder runs in debug mode (internal notes only). In this mode, responses will only be visible to your support team as internal notes and not to the end-users.

To enable customer-facing responses:

1. Set the environment variable: ENABLE_PUBLIC_RESPONSES=true
2. Redeploy the application

When ENABLE_PUBLIC_RESPONSES is not set or is set to any value other than "true", the AI Auto Responder will only create internal notes (not visible to end-users) when responding to tickets.