Company Answers: a cited Q&A page on your own content

The hello-world of Glean apps: one page, one input, one permission-aware cited answer — built two ways, with the Web SDK and with the Chat API.

~30 minBeginner

Problem

Every team has the same first Glean app: a single page where anyone can ask a company question and get a cited, permission-aware answer. There are two equally valid ways to build it — this recipe builds both, side by side, so you can pick the trade-off that fits your app.

Architecture

Company Answers pagesingle input + answer card

Path A: Web SDKrenderChat — Glean owns the UI

Path B: Chat APIchat.create — you own the UI

Gleanpermission-aware answers with citations

Prerequisites

A Glean instance with content indexed

For the Web SDK path: an existing Glean session in your normal browser

Node 20.19+ or 22.12+

Steps

Pick a path

Path A (Web SDK) renders Glean's own chat UI for you — fastest to stand up, no backend code. Path B (Chat API) calls the Chat API directly from your own backend — you own every pixel of the UI and the request/response shape. Both reach the same place: a permission-aware, cited answer.

Web SDK
Chat API

Scaffold the project

npx -y tiged@2.12.8 --mode=git gleanwork/glean-cookbook/recipes/company-answers/web-sdk company-answers

Install dependencies

cd company-answers && npm install

Configure the tenant

Enter the user's work email when prompted. The shipped discovery command writes VITE_GLEAN_BACKEND to .env.local. Set VITE_GLEAN_INITIAL_MESSAGE to the topic they supplied.

cd company-answers && npm run configure -- --email "<work-email>"

Run it

Keep Vite running, report its exact Local URL, and wait for the user to open it in their normal signed-in browser. Never open or automate the URL yourself.

cd company-answers && npm run dev

Verify

Give the user the exact printed local URL to open in their normal signed-in browser. Ask them to try a topic they know exists in their Glean instance and confirm a real, cited answer renders inside Glean's chat UI.

Scaffold the project

npx -y tiged@2.12.8 --mode=git gleanwork/glean-cookbook/recipes/company-answers/chat-api company-answers

Install dependencies

cd company-answers && npm install

Set credentials

The shipped command discovers the tenant from the user's work email, signs them in with OAuth, and writes the backend plus short-lived access token to ignored .env. Set GLEAN_DEMO_QUERY to the supplied topic. If tenant OAuth is unavailable, enter a CHAT-scoped API token as the fallback.

cd company-answers && npm run login -- --email "<work-email>"

Verify

Takes about 1–3 minutes. It starts its own server and checks the configured topic for a non-empty answer with deduplicated citations.

cd company-answers && npm run verify

Run it

Leave the verified app running at http://localhost:3000 and give that URL to the user.

cd company-answers && npm start

Take it further

Swap in a specific agent by passing its agentId — to the chat component for Path A, or in the chat.create request for Path B.
Stream responses instead of waiting for the full answer (both the Web SDK and the Chat API support streaming).
Add follow-up prompt suggestions from the Chat API response's followUpPrompts.

Try it

What's our PTO policy?

Returns a non-empty answer with at least one citation carrying a real title and URL, drawn from your own indexed content.

How do I request time off?

Returns a non-empty answer with at least one citation carrying a real title and URL, drawn from your own indexed content.

Each of these was run against a live Glean instance on 2026-08-02.

Choose your tool
Install the plugin
1
```
claude plugin marketplace add gleanwork/glean-cookbook
```
2
```
claude plugin install cookbook@glean-cookbook
```
Run the recipe
```
/cookbook:company-answers
```
Run /reload-plugins to pick it up without restarting.

View source

Runs the recipe through the Glean cookbook plugin.

At a glance

SurfacesClient API, API clients, Web SDK

StatusShowcase

Time~30 min

Required scopes

CHAT