Outdated bots
When a bot is OUTDATED, what changes, and when to retrain.
A bot enters the OUTDATED status when its documents change after a successful training. Unlike other "not ready" states, an OUTDATED bot is still chatable — chat falls back to the most recent trained version.
How a bot becomes OUTDATED#
- You upload a new document to a READY bot.
- You delete a document from a READY bot.
- (Future) The system detects an external source change for crawl-backed bots — not yet implemented.
The bot status changes immediately; nothing happens automatically beyond that.
What works while OUTDATED#
- Chat. Answers use the previous trained index.
- Embed widget. Visitor chat keeps working.
- API. Token-based clients can still send messages.
- Document upload and delete. You can keep editing the knowledge base.
What does NOT work while OUTDATED#
- Recent document changes do not appear in answers — until you retrain.
What to do#
Click Train Bot again on the Source settings tab. Pegasus will only re-process the delta (added/removed files), so retraining is usually faster than the first training.
After retraining, the bot returns to READY.
Should you retrain immediately?#
Depends on the change:
- Critical content (e.g. you removed a document that was answering questions incorrectly): retrain immediately.
- Additive content (e.g. you added a supplementary handbook): retrain when convenient.
- Bulk edits (e.g. you're mid-replacing a whole policy package): batch the edits, then retrain once.
The OUTDATED state has no time limit — bots can stay OUTDATED indefinitely. They keep working.