How it works

Support Chat has three moving parts that work together:

1. The SDK on your page. You add a single <script> tag (see Quickstart) — there's nothing to bundle or install. The SDK exposes a typed, Promise‑based API and owns identity and lifecycle: who the current user is, and when the messenger boots, updates, or shuts down.

2. The hosted widget UI. The chat interface itself renders inside a hosted iframe served by Clad — not on your page. The SDK communicates with it over postMessage. Because the UI lives in an isolated iframe, your CSS can never collide with it and your page never gains access to the session token; the iframe acts as a security boundary.

3. The Widget API and your support platform. The widget talks to Clad's backend over HTTPS, plus a WebSocket for realtime updates. Messages a visitor sends become real conversations in your support inbox, and replies from your agents (or AI) stream back into the widget in real time.

In short: the SDK lives on your site and controls identity, the hosted iframe renders the conversation, and Clad's backend routes everything into your support platform — tickets, agents, and knowledge base.

You configure each widget once in your workspace admin (theme, launcher, allowed origins, knowledge base, forms, identity rules) and reference it from your code with a workspaceId and widgetId.