# Search and Ask AI

Every Readsmith site with a database gets search; add a model key and it gets semantic search and Ask AI, cited answers generated from your own content, on your own keys. Nothing routes through a third party you did not choose.

## Configure

```yaml title="docs.yaml"
ai:
  chat:
    provider: anthropic
    model: claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
  embedding:
    provider: openai
    model: text-embedding-3-small
```

Providers: `openai`, `anthropic`, `google`, or `gateway` for chat; `openai`, `google`, or `gateway` for embeddings. Mix freely. Keys never go in config; they come from the [environment](/docs/self-host/environment#ai-keys), role overrides first, provider-native variables second.

## Index the content

```bash
pnpm ai:index
```

Indexing is incremental by content hash: unchanged chunks are never re-embedded, so a typo fix costs one chunk, not a re-index. Run it after deploys (the compose image runs migrations on boot; indexing is the one manual step in this release).

## The degradation ladder

Features turn off one at a time, never all at once:

| Missing                       | What still works                                                         |
| ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Chat key                      | Everything except Ask AI                                                 |
| Embedding key                 | Ask AI and keyword search; the semantic arm is off                       |
| Provider down at request time | Search answers `degraded: true` with keyword results, and the UI says so |
| Database                      | The whole docs site, agent outputs included; search and Ask AI are off   |

Clients can read the current state from [the capabilities endpoint](/docs/api-reference) rather than guessing.

## Grounding and citations

Ask AI retrieves full chunks, never display previews, and answers cite the pages they came from. The same retrieval serves the on-site console and the MCP `search_docs` tool, so an agent and a reader get the same floor of quality.

## Rate limits

On by default: Ask AI 10 requests per minute, search 60, per client IP. Tune in config or override at deploy time:

```yaml title="docs.yaml"
ai:
  limits:
    ask: { limit: 20, windowMs: 60000 }
```

Ask AI spends your model credits; the tight default is intentional. The [security page](/docs/self-host/security#rate-limits) covers the environment overrides and proxy IP handling.