Issues & support
Set up Discourse
Connect your Discourse forum to make community discussions searchable — each topic becomes a document with the opening post and the discussion under it, tied to its category and the people in the thread. Read-only.
Before you start
- In Discourse, an administrator opens Admin → API → Keys → New API Key.
- Choose the user the key reads as, and pick the Read-only scope — a limited user's key sees only what that user sees; the system user sees everything, including private categories.
- Only reads are ever issued against the forum.
- Documents → Discourse, enter the Forum URL, the API username, and the API key.
- Optionally list Categories under Advanced to narrow the sync — blank reads every category the key's user can see.
- Optionally adjust Restricted categories and Staff whispers under Advanced.
- Choose access groups, Test, then Sync.
What comes in
- Each topic becomes a document titled with its subject, carrying its category, reply count and closed state.
- The opening post and the discussion render underneath, each post attributed and dated; long topics keep the opening posts and the most recent replies.
- Staff whisper posts, if included, are labelled staff whisper.
| Categories | Optional — category names, one per line, to sync only those. Blank syncs topics from every category the API user can see. |
|---|---|
| Restricted categories | Whether topics in read-restricted categories are synced at all. Left out by default; switch to Include only when everyone this source serves may read them. |
| Staff whispers | Whether staff-only whisper posts are included in a topic's document, labelled staff whisper. Included by default. |
Access
Documents synced from Discourse are visible only to the access groups chosen when the source is set up — access is allow-only. Restricted categories are left out of the sync entirely by default; nothing from them becomes a document until Restricted categories is switched to Include.
The API key reads the forum as whichever user it was bound to — a limited user's key only ever sees what that user sees, so match the key to what should be searchable rather than defaulting to an all-seeing admin key.
Last updated 20 Sep 2026