AI Chat for Etherpad

AI chat participant for Etherpad. When users @mention the AI in pad chat, it reads the document, understands who wrote what, and responds. It can also edit the pad directly when asked.

Installation

Requires ep_ai_core.

pnpm run plugins i ep_ai_core ep_ai_chat

Configure the LLM provider in settings.json under the ep_ai_core key. See the ep_ai_core README for full configuration details.

Usage

Type @ai followed by your message in the pad's chat box:

@ai summarize this document
@ai who wrote the introduction?
@ai fix the spelling errors in paragraph 3

The AI will respond in chat. If you ask it to make changes and the pad has full access mode, it will edit the document directly.

Configuration

Chat-specific settings go under ep_ai_core.chat in settings.json:

{
  "ep_ai_core": {
    "apiBaseUrl": "https://api.anthropic.com/v1",
    "apiKey": "sk-ant-...",
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
    "chat": {
      "trigger": "@ai",
      "authorName": "AI Assistant",
      "authorColor": "#7c4dff",
      "systemPrompt": "You are a helpful writing assistant.",
      "maxContextChars": 50000,
      "chatHistoryLength": 20,
      "conversationBufferSize": 10
    }
  }
}

Setting	Default	Description
trigger	@ai	Text that activates the AI in chat
authorName	AI Assistant	Display name in chat and authorship
authorColor	#7c4dff	Color for the AI's edits and chat messages
systemPrompt	(built-in)	Custom system prompt for the LLM
maxContextChars	50000	Max characters of pad content sent to the LLM
chatHistoryLength	20	Number of recent chat messages included as context
conversationBufferSize	10	Number of conversation turns remembered per pad

How Editing Works

When a user asks the AI to change the document, the AI responds with a structured edit (find text, replace with new text). The plugin:

1. Locates the exact text in the pad
2. Applies the change as a native Etherpad changeset
3. Attributes the edit to the AI author (with the configured color)
4. Broadcasts the update to all connected clients
5. Announces the AI in the user list so its color appears in the author palette

If the pad's access mode is readOnly, the AI will answer questions but decline edit requests. If access is none, the AI will not respond at all.

Conversation Memory

The AI maintains a short conversation buffer per pad. Follow-up messages can reference earlier exchanges without repeating context. The buffer is kept in memory and resets when the server restarts.

License

Apache-2.0