Simple Chat Documentation

Simple Chat gives teams an Azure-native way to deploy, ground, govern, and extend AI experiences without stitching together a separate chat app, search layer, and admin plane.

New here? Start with what Simple Chat is, then pick a deployment path.

Find what you need

I want to…	Go to
Understand what Simple Chat is	About Simple Chat
Deploy it for the first time	Choose a deployment path
Learn a task step by step	Guides
Configure a setting	Admin settings
See what the product can do	Feature map
Look up an API	API reference
See what changed	Release notes
Find something specific	Search the docs

Documentation sections

Start

Orientation and first deployment. Covers what Simple Chat is, the deployment options and their tradeoffs, the architecture, and the FAQ.

Guides

Task-oriented, step-by-step instructions for users and admins. Each guide explains what the task does and why you would do it before listing the steps. See tutorials and how-to guides.

Features

What the product can do, including the feature map, latest release highlights, and worked scenarios.

Administration

One page per admin settings tab, covering what each tab controls, why it matters, every setting and its default, prerequisites, and the common tasks admins perform there.

Deploy and operate

Deployment paths for Azure Developer CLI, Bicep, Terraform, Azure CLI, and manual setup, plus networking, scaling, upgrades, and troubleshooting.

Reference

API reference, configuration reference, application workflows, and release notes.

What Simple Chat does

Context-aware AI conversations

Uses Azure OpenAI with hybrid retrieval over personal, group, and public workspace content, so responses stay tied to your own data rather than to the model’s general knowledge.

Document pipelines that stay searchable

Ingests PDFs, Office files, images, audio, and video through Azure AI services, then retrieves them with citations and optional metadata enrichment.

Controls for enterprise rollouts

Adds Entra ID roles, content safety, feedback review, conversation archiving, and operational logging without rebuilding the application.

Platform at a glance

Core application state lives in Azure Cosmos DB. Document retrieval runs through Azure AI Search. Ingestion is handled by Azure AI Document Intelligence and related media services. Authentication uses Entra ID.

That combination makes it practical to run Simple Chat as a governed internal tool rather than a demo-only sample.

Contributing

The docs, application, and deployers are maintained together. Read the contributing guide for the fork-based workflow, target branch expectations, and local development setup before editing code or documentation.

Documentation contributors should also check the media status page, which lists every screenshot and video slot that still needs to be captured.