FAQ & Limitations

What's Not Supported Yet

Ongoing, multi-request conversations Today, the chat window handles one HIL request at a time — a single pause of the workflow, which may itself contain several turns shown as bubbles (including an inline form). Once you respond and the workflow resumes, that conversation is done. A true, open-ended back-and-forth where the workflow keeps re-asking follow-up questions across separate pause/resume cycles, stitched into one continuous transcript, is not built yet. It's gated on confirming how the backend links consecutive requests together — treat it as not available until that's confirmed and implemented.

Not yet built at all

Markdown or other rich-text formatting in messages (plain text only, today)
File or image attachments in a message
A "typing…" indicator while the other side is composing a reply
Delivery or read receipts
Multiple people responding in the same conversation (multi-actor group chat)
Conversation history surviving a page reload — the transcript is held in memory only, for the current session
A library of ready-made settings presets beyond the single shipped default — each app currently builds its own overrides on top of defaultChatSettings

Common Questions

Why does clicking Fullscreen / Dock / Minimize do nothing?

Those three window-control icons currently only control whether they're shown in the header. No click behavior has been wired up for them in this release. Only the close icon is functional, and only once the app supplies an onClose handler.

Why is my action bar unstyled / the layout looks broken?

Make sure both stylesheets are imported: @bizfirst/hil-ui/styles and @bizfirst/hil-ui-chat-window/styles. The chat window reuses the action bar and countdown timer components from hil-ui unmodified, and those need hil-ui's own stylesheet to render correctly. See Quick Start.

Why does nothing render when I set `mount.mode: 'docked'`?

Docked mode requires settings.mount.attachTo to point at an element that actually exists in the DOM at render time. If the selector doesn't resolve to anything, the window renders nothing rather than falling back to a different placement. Double-check the selector and that the target element is already mounted.

Why is the close icon greyed out?

HilChatWindow doesn't assume what "close" should mean for your app — pass an onClose prop to make the icon clickable. Without one, it renders visible but disabled by design, rather than being a dead click target.

Can I show a form inline without registering anything special?

Yes, as long as you supply settings.api.formFetchURL — the chat window can fetch and render a form itself in that case. Without either that setting or an already-registered form renderer from your app, an inline form turn shows a placeholder instead of failing. See Quick Start, step 5.

Can I use the chat window and the classic form overlay in the same app?

Yes — choose per request, based on the request's type, at your composition root. Just never mount both for the same active request at the same time. See Quick Start, step 4.