PHP Chatbot Assistant
A free chatbot you run on your own server

1. Clone the repository and install its two dependencies

   git clone https://github.com/OnlineTechSupportBiz/php-chatbot-assistant.git
   cd php-chatbot-assistant/pca
   composer install

   Composer and the app live in pca/. Point your web server's document root at the public_html/ folder next to it, which holds the main program, the widget and the other files it needs.

2. Create the database and its two accounts, then turn on pgvector

   sudo -u postgres psql << 'SQL'
   CREATE ROLE chatbot_migrator LOGIN PASSWORD 'your-migrator-password';
   CREATE ROLE chatbot_user LOGIN PASSWORD 'your-app-password';
   CREATE DATABASE chatbot_assistant OWNER chatbot_migrator;
   SQL

   The migrator account owns the tables. The app account is what the website signs in with. Using two separate accounts is required, because that is what keeps each customer's data away from the others. Then, as a superuser (only a superuser can add the extension), create a schema owned by the migrator and turn on pgvector in it:

   sudo -u postgres psql -d chatbot_assistant << 'SQL'
   CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS chatbot_schema AUTHORIZATION chatbot_migrator;
   CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector WITH SCHEMA chatbot_schema;
   SQL

3. Run the database setup and write the settings file

   cd migrations
   DB_HOST=127.0.0.1 DB_PORT=5432 DB_NAME=chatbot_assistant \
   DB_USER=chatbot_user DB_PASS='your-app-password' \
   DB_MIGRATOR_USER=chatbot_migrator DB_MIGRATOR_PASS='your-migrator-password' \
   PG_SCHEMA=chatbot_schema \
   php run.php
   
   cd ..
   cp .env.example .env
   nano .env        # fill in the DB_*, APP_URL and SMTP values
   chmod 600 .env

   run.php will not start unless the migrator account is different from the app account, and when it finishes it gives the app account the rights it needs. The settings file lives at pca/.env, and every setting you can change is listed in it.

4. Start the app, sign up, and add your AI models

   Point your web server at public_html/. Sign up on the site. The first account becomes the admin for that client account. In Settings, add the AI models you want by giving each one a name, an API key and a web address: OpenAI, OpenRouter, or a model you run yourself. Add an embeddings model and a document-reading key there too.

5. Create a chatbot and train it

   Pick an industry preset (101 of them across 27 categories) or write your own instructions, choose vector search or PageIndex, then upload a document. The system reads the file, splits it up, stores it and makes it searchable, and it shows you the status of every step.

6. Embed the widget and lock it to your domain

   Copy the snippet from the chatbot page and paste it into your site right before </body>. Add the domains allowed to use that widget token, so a copied snippet stops working anywhere else.

Check the security setup

Optional, but worth doing: every table should show t | t (row-level security on and forced) and be owned by chatbot_migrator, not chatbot_user.

sudo -u postgres psql -d chatbot_assistant -c \
  "SELECT c.relname, c.relrowsecurity, c.relforcerowsecurity, pg_get_userbyid(c.relowner) AS owner
   FROM pg_class c JOIN pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
   WHERE n.nspname = 'chatbot_schema' AND c.relkind = 'r';"

Verify the install

php vendor/bin/phpunit tests/Unit/

282 tests cover the models, controllers, routes, sign-in, rate limits, prompt-injection detection, both ways of finding answers, and unsafe-HTML cleaning. They use fake databases, so nothing outside your machine is contacted.