# What Cactus does

> Verified against the product on 2026-10-06

## What Cactus does

Cactus reads connected product repositories and can connect existing help material. It maps product behavior, starts documentation work from that map, and gives your team places to answer product questions.

## Product knowledge

Cactus maps your product from connected repositories and ties each map version to the repository commits it read. It starts documentation builds from that map, so your team can trace help back to product code. When repository changes affect mapped evidence, Cactus updates affected map entries and documentation; if it can’t safely update the map, it draws the map again. For details, read [Keep product knowledge current](https://cactus.heycactus.ai/keep-product-knowledge-current).

## Connections

### Sources

| Source | What it contributes |
| --- | --- |
| GitHub repositories | Product code and docs |
| Help Center, Zendesk, or Notion | Existing help content |
| PostHog and LaunchDarkly | Feature-flag checks found in your code |
| Slack channels | What your team says in watched channels |

Connect brings together where Cactus answers, what it reads, and where handoffs go. Answer surfaces include your Help Center, Messenger, AI clients over MCP, Slack, and Discord. You can set handoffs to Email, a Slack channel, or a Discord channel.

## Customer answers

Customers can ask questions in a published Help Center, in Messenger on your product site, through an AI client over MCP, or in Slack and Discord. In Messenger, Cactus answers in the conversation. For details, read [Answer customer questions](https://cactus.heycactus.ai/answer-customer-questions).

## Human handoffs

You can set Email, a Slack channel, or a Discord channel as a handoff destination. When a teammate handles a Messenger thread, Cactus doesn’t generate an automatic reply, and the customer’s message is recorded in the Inbox. For next steps, read [Resolve or escalate customer conversations](https://cactus.heycactus.ai/resolve-and-escalate-conversations).

## Products and teams

| Area | What you do there |
| --- | --- |
| Home | Read product knowledge |
| Inbox | Review customer conversations |
| Connect | Set up answer surfaces and handoffs |
| Settings | Configure products and sources |
| Members | Manage team membership from a team-level page |

For team access, read [Join and manage your teamspace](https://cactus.heycactus.ai/join-and-manage-teamspace). For product setup, read [Create and set up a product](https://cactus.heycactus.ai/create-and-set-up-product).

## Product visibility

For watched products, your team can use Visibility to review AI answers, whether models name or cite the product, naming trends, keyword positions, recommendations, and follow-up actions. Read Monitor AI visibility for details.