deskcrew-rails

Ruby on Rails gem for the DeskCrew support widget

A view helper or middleware for AI live chat, tickets and a help center, a generator, and a client to create tickets from your code.

Website • Integrations • For agents • Sign up

⭐ Help more people find DeskCrew. Star this repo!

Live chat, an AI support chatbot and helpdesk ticketing for Ruby on Rails, in one gem. deskcrew-rails adds the DeskCrew support widget to a Rails app: visitors chat with an AI that answers from your knowledge base, anything it cannot answer becomes a ticket, and a human approves every reply before it sends. It also gives you a tiny client so a contact form, a feedback form or a background job can open a ticket from Ruby.

Works with Rails 6.1 to 8, Hotwire, Turbo, Stimulus, Devise, importmap and Propshaft. Nothing to add to the asset pipeline. Free plan, no credit card: https://deskcrew.io/signup

• Live chat on a Rails app without writing JavaScript: one helper in the layout, or one config flag for every page.
• An AI chatbot for customer support that only answers from your own help articles, with a human handoff when it is unsure.
• Contact form to support ticket: post the form fields to Deskcrew::Client.create_ticket and the message lands in your inbox as a ticket.
• A help center and knowledge base for a SaaS, an e-commerce store, a Rails API with a marketing site, or an internal tool.
• Replacing a paid chat widget (Intercom, Crisp, Tawk.to, Zendesk, Freshdesk, HelpScout) with one that starts free and never sends a reply you did not approve.

# Gemfile
gem "deskcrew-rails"

bundle install
bin/rails generate deskcrew:install

The generator writes config/initializers/deskcrew.rb:

Deskcrew.configure do |config|
  config.widget_key = ENV.fetch("DESKCREW_WIDGET_KEY", nil) # "pub_..." from your dashboard's Install page
  config.board = ENV.fetch("DESKCREW_BOARD", nil)           # your board slug
  config.site_url = "https://www.example.com"               # this site's public origin
  # config.color = "#4f46e5"
  # config.position = "right"                               # or "left"
  # config.greeting = "Hi! How can we help?"
  # config.auto_inject = true                               # see below
  # config.enabled = !Rails.env.test?
end

Either add the helper to your layout, just before </body>:

<%= deskcrew_widget_tag %>

or set config.auto_inject = true and a middleware adds the same tag to every successful HTML response. JSON, redirects, streams and error pages are left alone, and a page that already carries the tag is never given a second one.

The widget only runs on origins you have registered. Once per environment:

bin/rails deskcrew:register_origin

This sends your site_url to DeskCrew together with your public widget key. The same thing happens when you paste the key on the dashboard's Install page, so run it only if you configured the key here first.

Deskcrew::Client.create_ticket(
  name: current_user.name,
  email: current_user.email,
  message: params[:message]
)

Returns true when DeskCrew accepted the ticket, false otherwise. It never raises into your request cycle, and the call takes at most ten seconds, so wrap it in a background job if you create tickets in bulk.

Install this gem, run bin/rails generate deskcrew:install, put your widget key in the initializer, and add <%= deskcrew_widget_tag %> before </body> in app/views/layouts/application.html.erb. Every view that uses that layout gets the chat bubble. Set config.auto_inject = true instead if you would rather not touch layouts.

Yes. The widget mounts once into its own container and Turbo replaces page bodies without touching it, so an open conversation survives navigation. Turbo Frames and Streams are unaffected.

No. The widget is a single external script loaded from deskcrew.io, not an application asset. There is no Sprockets entry, no importmap pin and no bundling step.

Yes. Deskcrew::Client.create_ticket(name:, email:, message:) posts the ticket and returns true or false. It never raises into your request cycle and times out after ten seconds, so call it from a job (Sidekiq, Solid Queue, GoodJob) when you create tickets in bulk.

It answers only from the knowledge base you publish on DeskCrew and says so when it does not know. Anything it cannot answer becomes a ticket, and a person approves every outbound reply. The AI never emails a customer on its own.

Devise: yes, the widget is independent of authentication; pass current_user details to create_ticket if you want tickets tied to accounts. Several layouts: add the helper to each layout you want covered, or use auto_inject. Multi-tenant apps with one DeskCrew board per tenant can call deskcrew_widget_tag with a different key per request.

Yes. The free plan includes the chat widget, ticketing, a public help center and a monthly AI answer allowance, with no credit card. Paid plans add inbound email, white-label and more AI answers: https://deskcrew.io/pricing

The Rack middleware (Deskcrew::Middleware) and Deskcrew::Client do not depend on Rails, so a Sinatra or Rack app can use them directly. The view helper, generator and rake task are Rails-only.

• The widget script tag points at https://deskcrew.io/desk.js with your public widget key and the optional board, colour, position and greeting. Every value is validated and HTML-escaped before it reaches the page.
• deskcrew:register_origin posts your site_url and widget key to https://deskcrew.io/api/widget/register-origin.
• Deskcrew::Client.create_ticket posts the name, email and message to https://deskcrew.io/api/widget/submit with your site_url as the Origin.

Nothing else leaves your app. Terms: https://deskcrew.io/terms. Privacy: https://deskcrew.io/privacy.

Ruby 3.0 or newer. Rails 6.1, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 or 8.0. Tested against Rack 2.2 and Rack 3.

MIT. See LICENSE.txt.