# Zendesk

> Deploy an agent to Zendesk to draft internal notes or reply to tickets.

Source: https://docs.runbear.io/channels/zendesk

Last updated: 2026-08-26

Zendesk is for support teams that work in tickets. The agent can post a private note that only your team sees, or reply to the customer directly, and can be restricted to answers it can ground in your knowledge base.

## Setup

1. In the Runbear dashboard, open your agent and go to the **Chatbots** tab.
2. Click **Connect** on the Zendesk tile and follow the authorization flow.
3. Configure your triggers and response settings (see below).

> **Bot identity**
>
> By default, the agent posts using your own Zendesk identity. If you'd prefer responses to come from a dedicated bot user, you can configure one — note that a bot user consumes an additional Zendesk agent seat.

## Triggers

Triggers define when the agent responds to tickets. You can enable one or both.

### Ticket creation trigger

When enabled, the agent automatically responds whenever a new ticket is created. You can narrow this with optional filters:

- **Tag filters** — only trigger when the new ticket has specific tags.
- **Agent filters** — only trigger when the ticket is assigned to specific agents.

You can also provide a **custom prompt** to override the default system instruction for this trigger (up to 1024 characters).

### Internal comment trigger

When enabled, the agent responds whenever an internal comment starting with a trigger word is added to a ticket. The default trigger word is `@Runbear` — for example, an agent writes an internal note starting with `@Runbear summarize this ticket` and the bot responds.

## Response settings

### Private notes vs. public comments

By default, the agent posts responses as **private internal notes**, visible only to your support team. To let the agent post customer-facing replies instead, enable **Reply as public comment** in the chatbot preferences.

### Grounding — knowledge-base-only mode

Enable **Reply only with knowledge base** to restrict the agent to answering only when it finds relevant information in your connected knowledge sources. When enabled, the agent will not respond if it cannot find supporting information — reducing the risk of hallucinated answers.

### Hiding annotations

Enable **Hide annotations** to remove source citations and knowledge-base references from the agent's responses. This produces more concise replies without attribution details.

## Disconnecting

In the Runbear dashboard, go to the **Chatbots** tab, click the more options menu on the Zendesk tile, and select **Deactivate**.