# What are Custom Actions?

Give your AI assistant the ability to interact with external services



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Custom actions let your AI assistant do things beyond just chatting. When a user asks your assistant to send an email, update a spreadsheet, or check inventory, custom actions make it happen.

## How It Works

1. **User asks a question** → "Can you add John Doe to our mailing list?"
2. **AI recognizes the intent** → Needs to call the mailing list API
3. **Custom action executes** → Sends request to your email service
4. **AI responds with result** → "I've added John Doe to the mailing list"

## Real Examples

### Send a Slack Message

User: "Notify the team that the report is ready"

```bash
POST https://hooks.slack.com/services/YOUR_WEBHOOK
{
  "text": "The Q4 report is ready for review"
}
```

### Look Up Customer Data

User: "What's the order status for customer #12345?"

```bash
GET https://api.yourstore.com/orders?customer_id=12345
```

### Create a Support Ticket

User: "Create a high priority ticket about the login issue"

```bash
POST https://api.helpdesk.com/tickets
{
  "title": "Login authentication failing",
  "priority": "high",
  "description": "Users unable to log in since 3pm"
}
```

## What You Can Configure

### 1. The API Endpoint

Tell your assistant which URL to call:

- `https://api.yourservice.com/endpoint`
- Supports GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE

### 2. Authentication

Add your API credentials securely:

- API keys stored encrypted
- Bearer tokens in headers
- Basic auth supported

### 3. Parameters

Define what data to send:

- **Fixed values**: Same every time (like your API key)
- **AI-generated**: Assistant fills based on conversation
- **From other actions**: Use results from previous API calls

### 4. When to Use It

Write a description so the AI knows when to trigger this action:

- "Use this when user wants to send an email"
- "Call this to look up order information"

## Common Use Cases

**Customer Support**

- Look up account information
- Create and update tickets
- Send follow-up emails

**Sales & Marketing**

- Add leads to CRM
- Send notifications to Slack
- Update deal stages

**Operations**

- Check inventory levels
- Update spreadsheets
- Trigger workflows

**Data & Analytics**

- Query databases
- Generate reports
- Log events

## Why Use Custom Actions?

**Without custom actions**: Your AI can only talk about doing things.

**With custom actions**: Your AI actually does things.

Instead of saying "You'll need to manually add that to your CRM," your assistant says "I've added that contact to your CRM."

## Requirements

- Pro plan or higher
- API endpoint you want to connect to
- API credentials (if required)
- 5 minutes to set it up

## Quick Start

1. Go to [app.chipp.ai](https://app.chipp.ai) → Your App
2. Navigate to **Build** → **Capabilities**
3. Click **Add Custom Action**

<img src="/assets/docs/screenshots/custom-action-button.png" className="rounded-xl max-w-[300px] border border-gray-200" />

4. Paste a cURL command or configure manually
5. Test it and save

Your AI assistant can now interact with that service.

Continue to [Getting Started →](/docs/custom-actions/getting-started)