AI agents can only answer based on the knowledge and instructions you give them. When an answer comes back wrong, incomplete, or completely off-topic, the cause is almost always one of three things: the content needed to answer the question isn’t in the knowledge base, the content exists but is too vague or ambiguous for the agent to use confidently, or the question falls outside the scope of what the agent was configured to handle. The good news is that all three causes are diagnosable and fixable using the tools built into your My AskAI dashboard.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/arainey2022/myaskai-docs/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
After making any fix, always re-test the original question before calling the issue resolved. The agent’s behaviour changes as soon as you save an update, so re-testing takes only a few seconds.
Debugging Workflow
Find the conversation in Inspect & Logs
Open your My AskAI dashboard and navigate to Improve → Inspect & Logs. Search for the conversation either by ticket ID or by the question text.Tip: If you can’t find the conversation, reproduce it by asking the same question in the preview widget on the Guidance page. The new conversation will appear in Inspect & Logs within seconds.
Open the Inspect side panel and Ask Echo
Click on the conversation. The Inspect side panel will open. Click Ask Echo and type in the original question. Echo is My AskAI’s internal meta-agent — it will explain exactly how the answer was constructed, including:
- A summary of the answer generated
- The knowledge sources (help centre articles, web pages, files, Custom Answers) that were retrieved and used
- Any Guidance rules that were applied
- Whether User Data, a Tool, or a Task contributed to the answer
Identify the gap
Using the Echo output, determine the root cause. The most common causes are:
- Content is missing — the knowledge base simply does not contain information on this topic.
- Content is outdated — the relevant article exists but contains stale information.
- Content is too vague — the article touches on the topic but doesn’t answer the specific question explicitly.
- Conflicting instructions — two knowledge sources or Guidance rules contradict each other.
- Question is out of scope — the question is about something your agent was never intended to answer (e.g. competitor comparisons, data analysis, complex arithmetic).
Fix the root cause
Choose the right fix based on what you found:
Content is missing
Add the relevant help article, webpage, or document to your knowledge base under Knowledge → Content. After adding, the agent will index it automatically.
Content is vague or outdated
Update the source document or page with clearer, more specific language. Re-sync the content from Knowledge → Content once updated.
Need an exact answer
Add a Custom Answer under Improve → Custom Answers. Custom Answers let you specify trigger phrases and the exact response the agent should give — ideal for FAQs, policy statements, and anything that needs to be word-perfect.
Need to shape behaviour
Add or update a Guidance rule under Improve → Guidance. Use Guidance to control tone, restrict topics, force human escalation, or add standing instructions that apply to every answer.
Re-test the question
Once you’ve made the fix, return to the preview widget and ask the same question again. Check that:
- The answer is now correct and complete
- The sources shown are the right ones
- No unintended side effects appear in related questions
Common Root Causes at a Glance
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| ”I don’t know” on a question you have content for | Content not indexed or still syncing | Check Knowledge → Content; wait for indexing to complete |
| Vague or generic answer | Source document lacks specific detail | Improve the source content or add a Custom Answer |
| Outdated information in the answer | Content has been updated externally but not re-synced | Trigger a re-sync from Knowledge → Content |
| Conflicting answers to similar questions | Two sources contradict each other | Remove or update the conflicting source; use Custom Answers to override |
| Agent ignores Guidance rule | Rule wording is too broad or too narrow | Review the rule in Improve → Guidance and refine trigger conditions |
| Out-of-scope question | Question is inherently unanswerable by the agent | Consider adding a Guidance rule to redirect these questions gracefully |