Knowledge: Give Your Character a Bookshelf

Think of Knowledge as the books on your character’s shelf. When someone asks a question, your character can pull a book off the shelf and answer from what’s actually written inside — instead of making things up.

You do three simple things: upload a file, wait for it to be ready, and put it on the shelf of the scene that needs it. Done.

We’ll use a running example: you’re building a support character for an online shoe store. You want it to answer questions about shipping, returns, and your products — straight from your own documents.

The journey of one document (the big picture)

Here’s the whole trip, start to finish:

1. Upload a document.
2. Wait a moment while it gets ready (you’ll see a tag change to Active — more on that below).
3. Attach it to the scene where your character should be able to answer from it.
4. Publish (hit “post”), and your character can now answer from it.

That’s it. No technical setup, no settings to wrestle with. You upload and attach; the platform handles everything behind the curtain.

Step 1 — Upload your documents

👉 Do this: Go to the Knowledge base page. It’s one simple, searchable list of all your files — like a single shelf, not a filing cabinet with folders. (There are no folders or tags; you just search and scroll.)

What kinds of files work

✅ These file types are welcome:

• Text files (.txt)
• PDFs (.pdf)
• Word documents (.doc, .docx)
• Spreadsheets saved as CSV (.csv)

The size and count limits

Filling in the upload box

👉 Do this: Drag your file into the upload area, then fill in two things:

• Name — it fills in from the filename automatically. You can rename it (up to 64 characters).
• Description — optional. A short note for yourself, like “2024 returns policy.”

Reading the status tag (this matters)

Right after you upload, each file shows a little status tag. Learn what they mean — this saves a lot of head-scratching:

Bonus: turn a website into Knowledge

There’s also a Website Scraping option that grabs pages from a website and turns them into Knowledge for you — handy if your info already lives on a help site and you’d rather not download files by hand. Note that it doesn’t live on the Knowledge page: you’ll find it while creating an AI avatar — on the AI avatar page, choose Customize your AI avatar, and the Website Scraping button sits next to the message box. Once it’s pulled in, those pages behave exactly like any uploaded document.

Step 2 — Put the book on the right shelf

Uploading a file just means it exists in your library. It doesn’t put it on any character’s shelf yet. You decide, scene by scene, which books each scene can reach.

👉 Do this: Open your storyboard (your comic strip of scenes). Then:

1. Find the Knowledge tab in the left sidebar — it lists your uploaded files. (Files still showing Processing or Error look greyed out and can’t be used yet.)
2. Drag a file onto the scene that should be able to answer from it. Now that scene has the book on its shelf.
3. The scene’s editor shows a Knowledge section listing what’s on its shelf. You can look or remove from there.
4. Publish (hit “post”). Until you publish, your changes aren’t live for visitors.

The one rule that catches everyone

Here’s the thing to remember about which books your character can reach. At any moment in a conversation, it can only read from:

Books on other scenes are out of reach right now. Two simple takeaways:

• Put your “everyone needs this” documents on the FIRST scene. The first scene’s shelf is always within reach, no matter where the conversation has wandered. So your shoe store’s general FAQ, shipping basics, contact info — those go on the first scene.
• Put topic-specific documents on the scene that handles that topic. Your “Returns Policy” document on the Returns scene won’t get read while someone’s chatting in the Browse Products scene — which is usually exactly what you want. It keeps answers focused and on-topic. (See the Story & Scenes guide for how scenes work.)

A note on “the answer must be EXACTLY this”

Sometimes you have a fact that has to be word-perfect no matter what your documents say — like “Free shipping over $50, full stop.” Perxona does have a way to set those exact, hand-written answers that override the documents.

Tips that make a real difference

• Upload clean, text-rich documents. A PDF that’s really just a scan or photo of a page (no selectable text) is hard for your character to read. Real text works far better — Word docs, text-based PDFs, plain text files.
• One topic per file when you can. It makes “which scene gets which file” an easy call, and keeps answers sharp.
• Big-picture facts → first scene. Topic-specific facts → that topic’s scene. That’s the whole organizing trick.
• Wait for the green light. Attaching a file that’s still Processing means there’s nothing for your character to read yet.
• Keep it lean. A handful of well-chosen documents beats dumping in everything you own — and you’ve got file-count and storage limits anyway.

When something’s not working

The one-page recap

1. Knowledge = the books on your character’s shelf — what it can answer from. Different from Media (what it shows) and from personality and flow.
2. Upload → wait for the tag to leave “Processing” → attach to a scene → publish. Watch the tag: Processing → Idle → Active.
3. File types: txt, pdf, doc, docx, csv. Limits: 20 files per upload, and your plan’s storage quota. One searchable list, no folders. You can also pull a website in as Knowledge with Website Scraping while creating an AI avatar.
4. Put each book on the right shelf by dragging it onto a scene, then publish. Your character can only reach the first scene’s shelf + the current scene’s shelf — so put “everyone needs this” docs on the first scene.
5. Exact-answer overrides exist but aren’t a console screen yet — for now, write must-be-exact facts into the scene’s instructions and/or a short, clear document.
6. Remember: “Ready” takes a moment, you can’t delete a file that’s in use, and any change needs a fresh publish.