Getting Started - Sidekick Forge Docs

Platform Overview

Sidekick Forge is an AI agent platform that lets you create, customize, and deploy intelligent voice and text assistants. Each sidekick can be configured with its own personality, knowledge base, voice, and set of abilities (tools).

Sidekick Forge — Sidekick Management

The admin panel gives you access to:

Sidekicks — Create and manage your AI assistants
Knowledge Base — Upload documents that your sidekick can reference
Abilities — Enable tools like web search, prediction markets, and content generation
Monitoring — Track conversations, usage, and performance in real-time
Settings — Configure API keys, voice models, and LLM providers

Creating Your First Sidekick

The fastest way to get started is to create your sidekick using the Creation Wizard and accept the recommended settings. We've carefully selected the default voice, LLM, and ability configuration to give you an intelligent, capable sidekick that performs well right out of the box — no tuning required.

Recommended: Just click through the wizard and accept the defaults. The recommended settings use our optimized AI stack — purpose-built for fast, natural voice conversations and intelligent text chat. You can always customize later.

Here's what to expect at each step:

1

Name & Identity

Choose a name and write a short description for your sidekick. This description appears in the embed and helps users understand what the sidekick does.

Step 1 — Create Your Sidekick

2

System Prompt

Define your sidekick's personality, tone, and behavioral instructions. This is the core directive that shapes how your sidekick responds to users. You can use the AI-assisted prompt generator or write your own.

Pro Tip: Be specific about tone and boundaries. Instead of "Be helpful," try "You are a friendly, concise financial advisor. Always disclaim that you're an AI and not a licensed professional. Keep responses under 3 sentences when possible."

3

Choose a Voice

Select a text-to-speech voice from providers like Cartesia, ElevenLabs, or Speechify. You can preview voices before selecting. Each voice has unique characteristics suited to different use cases.

4

Enable Abilities

Choose which tools your sidekick can use during conversations. Available abilities include web search, prediction markets, content generation, image creation, and more.

Abilities — Available Tools

5

Launch

Review your configuration and launch your sidekick. It will be immediately available for testing in the admin preview and ready to embed on your website.

The Optimized AI Stack

Sidekick Forge ships with a carefully crafted, optimized stack of AI models designed to deliver an intelligent, capable, and fast-performing sidekick. Rather than leaving you to research and piece together models on your own, we've done the hard work of testing dozens of combinations across LLMs, voice synthesis, and speech-to-text to find the ideal balance of speed, quality, and cost.

The recommended defaults include:

Language Model (LLM)

Ultra-fast inference models tuned for real-time conversation — smart enough for complex reasoning, fast enough for natural voice flow.

Voice Synthesis (TTS)

Low-latency, natural-sounding text-to-speech that makes your sidekick feel like a real conversation partner, not a robot.

Speech Recognition (STT)

High-accuracy, real-time transcription with intelligent turn detection — so your sidekick knows when you're done speaking.

This stack is what powers sidekicks out of the box when you accept the wizard's recommended settings. Every component has been selected to minimize latency while maximizing intelligence — your sidekick responds quickly without sacrificing depth or accuracy.

Available Providers

While the defaults are optimized for the best experience, advanced users can swap any component. Sidekick Forge supports multiple providers for each layer:

LLMs: Cerebras, Groq, OpenAI (GPT-4o), Anthropic (Claude), DeepInfra (Llama, Qwen)
Voice (TTS): Cartesia Sonic, ElevenLabs, Speechify
Speech (STT): Deepgram, AssemblyAI

Sidekick Forge Inference vs. Bring Your Own Keys

Sidekick Forge offers two ways to power your sidekick's AI models:

Sidekick Forge Inference

Use our managed infrastructure — no API keys needed. Your sidekick's LLM, voice, and speech-to-text usage is covered by your Sidekick Forge subscription. This is the easiest way to get started and what the wizard configures by default.

Zero configuration — works immediately
Optimized model routing for lowest latency
Usage included in your subscription plan
We handle provider outages and failover

Bring Your Own Keys (BYOK)

Prefer to use your own provider accounts? Enter your API keys in Settings and your sidekick will call those providers directly. You pay the providers at their rates, giving you full control over cost and model selection.

Full control over provider and model choice
Use your own negotiated pricing tiers
Access to your custom or cloned voices
Keys stored securely, never shared

Recommendation: Start with Sidekick Forge Inference. It uses the same optimized AI stack described above and requires no setup. If you later need a specific model or want to use your own provider accounts, you can switch to BYOK at any time from Settings → API Keys without rebuilding your sidekick.

Adding Knowledge

The knowledge base uses RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) to give your sidekick access to specific information. Upload documents and your sidekick will automatically reference them when answering questions.

Supported Formats

PDF documents
Text files (.txt)
Markdown (.md)
URLs (web pages are automatically crawled)
WordPress content (via the Sidekick Forge Connect plugin)

Knowledge Base — Document Upload

Documents are automatically chunked, embedded, and indexed. When a user asks a question, the system retrieves the most relevant chunks and includes them in the sidekick's context. Citations appear in the conversation UI so users can verify sources.

Testing Your Sidekick

After creating your sidekick, you can test it directly from the admin panel:

Navigate to Sidekicks and click on your sidekick
Click the Preview button in the top right
Switch between Text, Voice, and Video modes using the toggle
For voice, click Start Conversation and begin speaking

Sidekick Preview — Voice Mode

Text

Voice

Video

Litebridge is speaking...

"I'd be happy to help you with that. Based on your product guide, the premium plan includes..."

View transcript • 2 citations

Next Steps

Now that your sidekick is up and running, explore these guides to take it further:

Managing Your Sidekick

Edit your sidekick's personality, voice, abilities, and more from the detail page.

Abilities & Tools

Explore the full set of abilities your sidekick can use — from content generation to project management.

Knowledge Base Guide

Best practices for uploading documents and getting accurate, relevant answers.

Embedding Your Sidekick

Add your sidekick to any website with a simple iframe embed or React component.

Getting Started with Sidekick Forge

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