Widget Display Rules

By default, the Bot Widget appears on every page that has your embed code. Display rules let you narrow that by URL path: show the bubble only on your docs, hide it during checkout, or anything in between. This article covers how rules are evaluated, the patterns that work, and what to check when a rule doesn't behave.

Where to find them

Open your bot's Deploy page, stay on the Bot Widget tab, and scroll to the Display rules card at the bottom. The card is labeled Saves instantly: every change you make here is stored as you make it, separately from the page's Save settings button.

Adding a rule

Each rule has two parts:

1. A condition, from the dropdown:

• Show on paths containing: show the widget when the URL path contains the pattern.
• Hide on paths containing: hide the widget when the URL path contains the pattern.

1. A pattern: a piece of the URL path, like /products, /blog, checkout, or the wildcard *.

Choose the condition, type the pattern, and click Add rule (or press Enter). New rules are added to the bottom of the list. The dropdown keeps your last choice, so after a Hide rule the next one is a Hide rule too until you change it.

The example chips under the form (Show on /products, Hide on /checkout, Hide on /admin, Hide everywhere (*)) fill in both parts and move the focus to Add rule; press Enter or click it to save the example as a rule.

Patterns match against the path portion of the URL only: the part after your domain. For https://example.com/docs/getting-started?ref=nav, the path is /docs/getting-started. Domains and query strings are not matched.

Changing a rule

Each saved rule has three controls:

• The Show or Hide badge switches the rule to the other condition with one click, keeping its pattern and its position. The widget follows the change on the next page load.
• The pencil (Edit rule) lets you change the path in place; press Enter or click away to save, Escape to cancel.
• The bin (Remove rule) deletes the rule. The confirmation toast has an Undo button.

How rules are evaluated

Every time a visitor loads a page, the widget walks your rule list top to bottom and stops at the first rule whose pattern matches the current path:

• If the matching rule is Show on paths containing → the widget is shown.
• If the matching rule is Hide on paths containing → the widget is hidden.
• If no rule matches (or you have no rules at all) → the widget is shown by default.

Two things follow from this:

• Order matters. Rule 1 beats rule 2 whenever both match. Drag a rule by its grip handle to reorder, or focus the handle and press the up and down arrow keys; the rule at the top is checked first.
• Matching is "contains", not "equals". /doc matches /doc, /docs, and /product/doc-holder. Prefer patterns with a leading slash and enough of the path to be unambiguous.

The * wildcard

The pattern * matches every path. On its own it isn't useful, but combined with ordering it unlocks allowlist-style setups: a low-priority wildcard sets the default, and higher-priority rules carve out exceptions.

Common patterns

Hide on checkout, show everywhere else

One rule is enough. On /checkout pages the rule matches and hides the widget; everywhere else nothing matches, so the widget shows by default.

Show only on your docs

On /docs/... pages, rule 1 matches first and shows the widget. Everywhere else, rule 1 doesn't match, rule 2 (the wildcard) does, and the widget is hidden.

Hide on admin and account pages

Multiple hide rules stack fine; the widget still shows by default everywhere none of them match.

Troubleshooting rules that don't match

The widget shows where you expected it hidden (or vice versa).

• Check rule order. The first matching rule wins, so a broad Show on paths containing rule above your hide rule will show the widget before the hide rule is ever reached. Drag the more specific rule higher.
• Check the badge. A rule saved as Show when you meant Hide (or the other way round) is fixed with one click on its badge; there's no need to remove it and add it again.
• Check for substring surprises. cart also matches /mycart-blog; /doc also matches /product/doc-holder. Make the pattern longer or add slashes.
• Confirm you're testing the path, not the domain or query string; those are never matched.

A change doesn't seem to take effect.

• Rules are evaluated when the page loads. Reload the page you're testing, ideally in an incognito window with a hard refresh.
• On single-page apps that swap pages without a full reload, the widget keeps the decision made at load time. It re-evaluates on the next real page load.

Still stuck? The widget logs its full evaluation to the browser console. Open DevTools (F12), reload, and look for HelpJet Targeting Evaluation - it lists every rule, whether it matched the current path, and why the widget was shown or hidden. If the output doesn't match what you configured, send a screenshot to support along with your bot ID.

Where to go next

• Embedding & Sharing Your Bot: the four deploy channels and when to use each.
• Customizing the Chat Widget: colors, icons, header, and welcome message.