Dosu answers questions by searching your connected data sources and responding with cited references.
Approach#
When someone asks a question, Dosu searches your indexed code, documentation, past issues, and other connected data sources to find relevant context. It then generates a response that synthesizes what it found, with citations linking back to the source material.
Dosu can also answer questions about Dosu itself (features, setup, integrations, pricing) by searching Dosu's official product documentation at dosu.dev and docs.dosu.dev.
Triggering a Response#
Mention @dosu (or @dosubot or @dosu-bot) in any GitHub issue, discussion, or Slack channel where Dosu is deployed. Dosu will search your data sources and reply with an answer. You can also edit an existing message to add a @dosu mention, and Dosu will respond to the edited message.
You can also configure Dosu to respond automatically without being mentioned. Three reply modes are available:
- Mention: Dosu responds only when explicitly mentioned. This is the default.
- Auto Draft: Dosu generates a draft response for a maintainer's review before posting. Useful when you want oversight before responses go live.
- Auto Reply: Dosu responds automatically to new issues or discussions without waiting for a mention or review.
Most teams start with Mention mode until they're confident in response quality.
Note on Auto Reply and Auto Draft modes: Dosu evaluates whether to respond based on the nature of the request, available data sources, and any deployment-specific guidelines you've configured. It will skip responding if the message doesn't appear to be a help request, if it lacks relevant tools to answer, or if the user has already solved their problem. Reporting a bug and asking for help are the same thing—when a user files a bug report with specific errors or unexpected behavior, they are seeking help, whether that's investigation, root cause analysis, workarounds, or pointers to related issues. Dosu recognizes that users who provide specific technical details (error messages, stack traces, version numbers, reproduction steps, or logs) are seeking help. Even when a bug report may need developer attention for a fix, Dosu can provide value by investigating the codebase, identifying the relevant code or commit, finding related issues, or suggesting workarounds—the bar is whether Dosu can provide useful context, not whether it can fix the bug itself. When generating a response in Auto Reply mode, Dosu also evaluates the response quality before auto-publishing, considering your deployment guidelines when determining whether to auto-publish or hold for review. Responses may be held for review if they're speculative, generic, or if the conversation involves disagreement or is directed at a specific person or team.
Enabling Q&A#
- Connect your repository or Slack workspace to Dosu if not already connected.
- Navigate to Settings > Deployments in the Dosu dashboard.
- Select your deployment, or create one by following Key Concepts: Deployments.
- Under Issues or Discussions, configure the reply mode.
- For Slack, configure reply settings in the Slack section of your deployment.
GitHub Discussions Categories#
In GitHub Discussions, Dosu only responds to the categories you specify. By default, this includes the Q&A and Questions categories. You can adjust this in your deployment settings under Discussions > Included Categories.
This filtering prevents Dosu from responding in announcement or showcase categories where Q&A isn't expected.
Getting Good Answers#
Dosu's answer quality depends on your connected data sources and how questions are asked.
For question askers: Include relevant context like error messages, code snippets, and what you've already tried. Be specific about what you're trying to accomplish, and reference specific files or features when applicable.
For maintainers: Connect comprehensive data sources (e.g., documentation, code, and past issues) so Dosu can find relevant context. Keep documentation current, as Dosu searches what's indexed.
Usage#
Dosu’s issue triage and Q&A features are available in GitHub issues, GitHub discussions, and Slack channels. To see live examples of this Dosu feature in action, you can view OSS repositories with Dosu enabled on new issues and discussions:
For more information on configuring this feature on Dosu, see the GitHub Deployment Creation or Slack Deployment Creation documentation.
