Chatboo

The pain

To use AI, people have to leave Odoo. They export spreadsheets into another application, or hand their Odoo password to an outside service. The answer lands somewhere else, and the work stops while they copy it back. Chatboo opens on top of the screen they are already on.

What you get

On the screen they already use

• The elephant in the top bar opens the chat over the current screen. Nobody leaves the record they were on.
• It knows which record or list is on screen.
• When several records could match, it lists them. Click a row and the next question is about that one.
• Conversations are saved and can be reopened. Each user sees only their own.

Work while it thinks

• Close the chat and carry on. The answer keeps coming.
• When it is ready, the elephant shows a bell and Odoo shows a notice.
• A long answer can be stopped from the chat.

Answers they can use

• Tables whose cells open the record, and charts drawn in the chat.
• Export an answer to PDF, Excel or Word, or copy it.
• Attach a spreadsheet, a Word file, a PDF, an image or plain text, and ask about it.
• Answers can be read aloud.

Skills that cost nothing

• Type / and pick a skill: a procedure written once, for the client's routines.
• Tables and charts from a skill come from code, not from the AI. Same data, same answer.
• A good answer can be saved as a new skill from the chat itself.
• That knowledge is a service you sell and maintain at each client.

Safe for your client

• It reads as the person who asks: their access rights, record rules and companies.
• A change is a plan with a Confirm button. Only users you allow can confirm.

Put it on, take it off

• A plain Odoo module: no external server, no build tools.
• Apache 2.0. No fee per user, per database or per year.
• Uninstall it from Apps like any other module.

Included in the module

Read from the module’s own files, version 2.1.553.

Example skills

They come with the module to show what a skill looks like. Each client’s own skills are written by their consultant. Type / in the chat and pick one.

Contexts

Installing Chatboo also brings PNS AI Engine, with its 28 contexts: see them.

What it does not do

• No AI of its own. Providers, agents and approvals live in the AI Engine. Without a provider with the Conversation role, the chat has no one to ask.
• Not for every user by default. Only users with AI Conversational and a generated API key can use it.
• No changes without a person. The AI proposes; a user with AI Writer presses Confirm.
• Two tested series. 14.0 and 19.0. From 15.0 to 18.0 you build the modules yourself and try them first; 13.0 and older do not run (see Odoo versions).

Questions

Where do the questions go? To the providers set up in the AI Engine, in the order of the agent's list. A skill that runs without the AI sends nothing out.

Is the voice an outside service? No. Reading an answer aloud uses the browser's own voice.

Is Chatboo an MCP server? No. The MCP server is in the AI Engine (/mcp). Chatboo is the chat inside Odoo, and it talks to the engine through PAAP, inside the same Odoo.

Can I use the engine without Chatboo? Yes. The AI Engine alone serves Cursor and other MCP clients.

Getting started

1. Install. From the Odoo Apps Store, download Chatboo: the store brings PNS AI Engine and PNS Base. From git, clone the three on the same series (19.0 or 14.0):

   mkdir -p ~/odoo/pns && cd ~/odoo/pns
   for r in pns_base pns_ai_mcp pns_ai_chatboo; do
     git clone -b 19.0 --depth 1 https://github.com/patanegra-soft/$r
   done
   

   Each clone is one more entry in addons_path (~/odoo/pns/pns_base,~/odoo/pns/pns_ai_mcp,~/odoo/pns/pns_ai_chatboo). On Odoo 14, first run pip install "openpyxl>=3.1.2". Restart Odoo, Apps → Update Apps List and install Chatboo; the other two come with it.

2. Set up the AI Engine. Chatboo talks to the AI through pns_ai_mcp. Follow its Getting started: AI administrator, your access and one provider.

Done. Click the elephant in the top bar.

For IT staff

How it fits

pns_ai_chatboo  ──PAAP──▶  pns_ai_mcp  ──▶  AI providers
  (conversation)             (engine)

Chatboo owns the conversation: sessions, the chat turn (streamed), the screen it is opened on and the interface (the app and the overlay from the top bar). Providers, agents, tools and the AI loop belong to the engine; Chatboo talks to it through PAAP (Patanegra Application Agent Protocol). It depends on web, bus, mail, pns_base and pns_ai_mcp.

A picked row travels with the next message as {model, id, label}, so the engine takes it as the subject instead of searching the name again. The pick is spent by that message.

Repository layout

main is one tree for every series. A flat branch (14.0, 19.0) is that tree built for one series, ready for the addons path.

The installer overlays common/ then the stack; a stack file with the same path wins. Edit agnostic files only in common/. Build a flat module with ./install_flat.sh 19.0 /path/to/addons.

Python: on 14, use a current openpyxl (old wheels break with recent NumPy). On 19 there is nothing extra.

Odoo versions

15.0 to 18.0. There is no branch to clone. Build the flat modules yourself from main, which has the code for every series (owl2 for 15.0 and later): pns_base, pns_ai_mcp and Chatboo.

git clone https://github.com/patanegra-soft/pns_base.git
git clone https://github.com/patanegra-soft/pns_ai_mcp.git
git clone https://github.com/patanegra-soft/pns_ai_chatboo.git
cd pns_base       && ./install_flat.sh 17.0 /path/to/addons && cd ..
cd pns_ai_mcp     && ./install_flat.sh 17.0 /path/to/addons && cd ..
cd pns_ai_chatboo && ./install_flat.sh 17.0 /path/to/addons

The script warns that the series is not tested. Nobody has run Chatboo on these series, so try it on a test database first and run the Odoo tests there (see Tests). If it works, or does not, tell us (CONTRIBUTING.md).

Odoo 13 has no OWL, which the chat is built on. Odoo 8 to 12 run on a Python older than 3.7, which the engine needs. The suite keeps two stacks (owl1 for 14.0, owl2 for 15.0 and later).

Tests

odoo-bin -d <db> -i pns_ai_chatboo --test-enable --stop-after-init --test-tags /pns_ai_chatboo

License, marks, training

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE and NOTICE. Chatboo™, the elephant-and-speech-bubble device, PATANEGRA Soft™ and PAAP™ are trademarks of PATANEGRA Soft SL; the license does not grant them. TDM / AI training is allowed (TDMRep tdm-reservation = 0).

Security: SECURITY.md. Bugs, ideas and questions: CONTRIBUTING.md.