Usage 

Opening the AI Chat module 

Navigate to Admin Tools > AI Chat in the TYPO3 backend. The module is available to all backend users who have access to the Admin Tools section (unless restricted via the allowedGroups setting).

Sending messages 

1. Type your message in the input field at the bottom of the chat area.
2. Press Enter or click the send button.
3. The message is sent to the server and processing begins in the background.
4. The interface polls for updates and displays the AI response when ready.

While the assistant is processing, you will see a loading indicator. Processing typically takes a few seconds, depending on the LLM provider and whether tools are invoked.

The assistant may execute several tool calls (e.g. reading page content, then creating a record) before responding. Each tool call iteration is visible in the conversation. Which tools it has comes from nr-llm — its builtin set plus any MCP server registered under AI > Operation > MCP Servers; this extension registers none of its own.

What the chat tells you besides the answer 

• Nothing was saved in this step. An answer that claims a finished change ("done", "created", "saved") carries this note when the run behind it wrote no record. Check the page before relying on the answer, and ask the assistant again.
• The AI provider is not set up. Editors see this sentence when the provider cannot be used, for example because its API key is missing. Administrators see the technical message instead, with a button to the LLM providers or tasks module.
• This step is still waiting for a decision. A message such as "weiter" or "habe alles freigegeben" while an approval card is on screen does not start a new run and does not approve anything: approve or deny on the card (without a card: in AI Tasks). If the step was already decided in AI Tasks, the chat says so and names the records the run wrote.

The assistant also knows which tools exist but are not available to you, and why — switched off, for administrators only, or not part of this chat's configuration — so it can tell you to ask an administrator instead of claiming that nothing can do what you asked.

Conversation management 

The sidebar shows your conversation history. Each conversation has a title that is auto-generated from the first message.

Attaching files 

A + button appears to the left of the input field whenever file attachments are available.

1. Click + to open the attachment menu.
2. Select Upload file to open a file picker and choose a file from your computer.
3. The selected file is uploaded immediately and shown as a badge above the input field (file name and size).
4. Type your message and send — the file is included in the request.

To remove a pending attachment before sending, click the × on the file badge.

Supported file types:

The following document formats are always available. Text is extracted server-side before sending to the LLM:

• PDF (application/pdf)
• DOCX (application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document)
• TXT (text/plain)
• XLSX (application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet) -- requires phpoffice/phpspreadsheet to be installed

Vision-capable providers (Claude, Gemini, GPT-4o, etc.) additionally accept images:

• PNG, JPEG, WebP

When the provider natively supports a document format (e.g. Claude natively handles PDFs), the file is sent as-is instead of being extracted. The file picker automatically restricts to the formats supported by the active provider.

Limits:

• Maximum 5 files per conversation.
• Maximum file size: 20 MB per file.

If a file is not accepted (wrong type, too large, or upload error), an error message is shown above the input. A file the logged-in user may not store in the attachment folder is refused as well — the file mounts and permissions that apply in the file module apply here too.

What happens to an attached file: it is not a throwaway copy. The upload puts it straight into the file storage — fileadmin/ai-chat/ by default, see attachmentFolder — where it is indexed like any other file, and the assistant is told its file uid and path. So you can ask it to reference the attachment from a content element in the same breath as you attach it, without uploading the file a second time through the file module, and you can ask it to describe the image for the alternative text. Which of those it can actually carry out depends on the file tools enabled in nr-llm, and every write waits for your approval. Placing a file in a different folder afterwards is not something the assistant can do — there is no tool for moving a file — so choose the attachment folder to suit where those files belong.

Nothing is overwritten: a name already taken produces photo_01.jpg, and re-attaching a file that is byte-identical to the one already there reuses it instead of making a copy.

Floating chat panel 

A chat button in the TYPO3 toolbar (top right, next to the search and user menu) opens a floating bottom panel. The panel stays visible across all module navigation -- you can chat with the AI while working in the page tree, list module, or any other backend module.

The panel has four states:

• Hidden -- Only the toolbar button is visible.
• Collapsed -- A minimal bar at the bottom showing the active conversation title.
• Expanded -- Resizable panel with the full chat interface.
• Maximized -- Full-height with conversation sidebar.

In the expanded state the conversations sit in one row of tabs above the chat. The row holds four of them: pinned conversations first, then the most recently active ones, and always the one that is open. The others are behind More (n) at the end of the row, which opens a list with a search field: type to filter by title, move with the arrow keys, open one with Enter, close the list with Escape. However many conversations you keep, the row stays one line high and the chat keeps its space. Maximized, the panel lists every conversation in the sidebar instead.

Panel height and state are stored in localStorage per user.

Dashboard widget 

With the TYPO3 dashboard installed, an AI Chat widget can be added to a dashboard (Add widget > General). It lists your five most recent chats; a click opens one in the floating panel next to the dashboard, New chat starts one there, and Open the chat module goes to the full-page view. For a user the chat is not available to, the widget says so instead of listing anything. Which groups may place the widget at all is set per backend group under Dashboard widgets, as for every other widget.

Error handling 

If a conversation fails (e.g. due to an LLM provider error or timeout), an error message is displayed. You can retry by sending a new message in the same conversation -- the system will attempt to resume processing.

Stuck conversations (processing for more than 5 minutes) are automatically marked as failed by the cleanup command.