Start inputs and values

Every value a step uses is linked to something you can point at. Nothing is inferred while the action runs, so what a step sends is always what you set up.

Where a value can come from

Source	What it is
An answer	What the visitor entered in a form field, or the choice they picked.
A Start input	A value the action was started with: filled by the AI for an action it calls, or by name from your External Variables for chat-start and session-end actions.
An HTTP response	The whole response of an earlier HTTP request, or one value in it.
A fixed value	Something you typed in yourself.

The same four sources feed HTTP request values, page event values, the values passed to another action, conditions, and what an action returns to the AI.

Pointing at one value in a response

To use one value from a response, give a path in the same notation Workflows use:

$.order.status

That reads the status field inside order. Leave the path empty to use the whole response.

The pickers only offer safe sources

When you link a value, the picker lists only the answers and responses of steps that come earlier on every path to that step. This stops a value from pointing at a branch the visitor may never have taken. An existing link that does point at such a branch is still shown, and validation warns about it.

An example

An action the AI starts has one Start input, order_number, described as “The number on the visitor’s order confirmation.” It has an HTTP request that calls https://api.example.com/orders/{order_number}, sending order_number from the Start input. Its End returns the $.status value of that response to the AI.

The assistant reads the action’s description, calls it with the number the visitor gave, and hears the order status back.