Platform overview

OrcAI lets organisations build bots that answer from their own material and cite their sources. It originated in the SokratesT project and still supports learning workflows where instructors curate sources and students interact with a grounded AI tutor. Beyond that fixed instructor-student model, individuals and groups can build specialised repositories and bots for their own domains.

What OrcAI doesCopy Anchor Link

1. Members upload files to the Library, and OrcAI prepares them as assets.
2. Repositories group assets, and behaviours set how a bot writes.
3. A bot combines one behaviour with its repositories and features such as web search or questions and quizzes.
4. When someone asks a bot a question, it searches its repositories for matching passages and cites them in its answer.

A chat can also run on a model alone, without a bot.

Behind this, background workers read the files, an embedding model indexes them in Qdrant, and the organisation's chat models write the answers. See Self-hosting for the services an instance runs.

Core areasCopy Anchor Link

• Home (/app): the start page after sign-in, with a Use tab (/app?view=use) for asking questions and a Manage tab (/app/manage) with an overview of the organisation and, for admins, its readiness checklist.
• Chat (/app/chat): AI chats, optionally started from a bot.
• Library (/app/library): everything the organisation can use, browsed by kind (Bots, Behaviours, Repositories and Assets) from one rail, with search, filters and a Mine switch. It is one item in the sidebar.
• Catalogue (/app/catalogue): the bots, behaviours and repositories that organisations on this instance have listed, to preview and add to your organisation. It is the sidebar item after Library.
• OrcAI Assistant (/app/assistant): the built-in helper for questions about your work and about OrcAI.
• Access control: organisations, roles, groups, invitations and sharing.
• Administration: Members, Groups, Quota pools, Analytics, Providers, Models and Organisation for the active organisation, shown to members whose role allows them.
• Instance management (/instance): health, organisations and accounts across the whole instance, for instance admins.

Suggested readingCopy Anchor Link

Getting accessCopy Anchor Link

The managed OrcAI service is open only by invitation from someone already on the instance. To create your own organisation and invite people yourself, contact us at sokratest@hochschule-rhein-waal.de.