Achla AI Search answer with cited source links
Drupal administration panel for connecting Achla AI Search
Drupal placement settings for Bubble, Inline, and Attach modes

This project is not covered by Drupal’s security advisory policy.

Visitors do not always use the same words you used on the page. They ask a question in everyday language, use a synonym, or type an acronym you defined somewhere else. Keyword search can miss the match even when the answer is already on your site.

Achla AI Search turns that question into a concise answer drawn from your published content, with links to the pages that support it. Visitors can ask in their own language and receive the answer in that language.

Achla answers questions about your content. It is not a live chat, helpdesk, or support inbox.

Free plan: 100 searches a month and 100 indexed pages. No payment card.

Features

  • Answers with sources. Visitors get a direct response and links to the pages behind it instead of another results list.
  • Meaning, not exact keyword matching. Synonyms, specialized terminology, spelled-out acronyms, and plain-language questions can reach the relevant content.
  • Answers in the visitor's language. The answer comes back in the language of the question, including right-to-left presentation where needed.
  • Answers grounded in your pages. Achla is designed not to show an answer without citations from indexed content. When the available pages do not provide enough support, it says so.
  • Site-wide crawling. The managed crawler can index permitted public pages, PDFs, and content that is not stored as a Drupal entity.
  • Three placement modes. Use a floating Bubble, place the native Achla AI Search block, or attach the widget to an existing search input.

As with any AI-generated output, visitors should check the cited pages when accuracy matters.

No model API keys or search infrastructure

Achla includes the parts that site owners would otherwise have to assemble and operate:

  • No OpenAI, Gemini, or other model-provider key to store in Drupal.
  • No separate token bill to estimate or monitor.
  • No vector database or search server to deploy and maintain.
  • No indexing pipeline to build. Achla crawls permitted public content and maintains the index as a managed service.

The Drupal module proves site ownership, stores the private management credential server-side, reports lifecycle status, verifies signed widget releases, and controls placement. Crawling, indexing, answer generation, billing, and widget design are handled by Achla.

Plans and pricing

  • Free — $0. 100 searches a month and 100 indexed pages. No payment card. This is an ongoing plan, not a trial that expires.
  • Paid plans start at $15 a month and include a fixed number of searches.

Extra usage is purchased in blocks of searches rather than model tokens. See current pricing.

Post-installation

Install the module with Composer:

composer require 'drupal/achlaai_search:^0.3'

Then:

  1. Grant Manage the Achla AI Search connector only to trusted operators.
  2. Open Administration → Configuration → Web services → Achla AI Search.
  3. Select Connect Achla AI Search, sign in, and confirm site ownership. No API key is copied into Drupal.
  4. Wait for the public content index and signed widget release to become ready.
  5. Choose Bubble, Inline, or Attach placement and explicitly enable widget output.

Visual styling and widget behavior are configured in the Achla dashboard.

Additional requirements

  • Drupal 10.3 or later, or Drupal 11.3 or later.
  • PHP 8.1 or newer with JSON, OpenSSL, and Sodium.
  • An Achla account and the managed Achla AI Search service.
  • A publicly reachable site origin. HTTPS is strongly recommended.
  • The Drupal site must run at the root of its own domain or subdomain. Subdirectory installations and path-based multisite are not supported.

The module requires no contributed Drupal modules.

Security and privacy

  • Widget releases are signed and verified before they can run in the browser. If verification, compatibility, or integrity checks fail, the widget does not load.
  • The private management credential stays server-side and is never sent to visitors.
  • The service indexes only permitted public site content. The connector does not send Drupal user accounts or private entities for indexing.
  • When the public widget is enabled, visitor questions are processed by Achla together with normal HTTPS metadata and the public project identifier needed to route the request.
  • Support diagnostics are allowlisted and exclude credentials, visitor questions, page content, arbitrary URLs, email addresses, IP addresses, cookies, and stack traces.
  • Disconnecting or uninstalling the module does not cancel an Achla subscription.

Review the privacy policy and terms of service before enabling the widget.

Similar projects

  • Search API is a flexible Drupal framework for building indexes, backends, Views-based result pages, and faceted search. Achla is a managed question-answering service that returns a concise answer with citations. The two can coexist.
  • AI Content Chat indexes selected Drupal content and lets the site owner configure an AI provider. Achla crawls permitted public content site-wide and does not require the site owner to supply a model API key or operate the index.
  • RAG AI Search adds generated answers to a Drupal Search API and OpenAI setup. Achla provides the crawler, index, model calls, cited-answer widget, and usage billing as one managed service.

Documentation and support

See the Drupal setup guide and FAQ. Account and service support are available from the Achla dashboard. Report module bugs and feature requests in the Drupal.org issue queue.

Project information

Releases