Chat Assistant Pro 2.1 lets external AI tools, such as Claude or n8n, use the same functions your on-site assistant already uses. You create an MCP server endpoint in the Joomla administrator, choose which functions it publishes, and hand the address and a token to the service that should connect.
Why we built this
Until now, everything Chat Assistant Pro could do on your site stayed inside the chat window. The assistant could search your content, look up a VirtueMart product or subscribe a visitor to your newsletter, but only during a conversation on your own pages.
Those functions are useful well beyond that. An AI assistant you already work in, or an automation you run in n8n, should be able to ask your site the same questions and get the same answers. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard those tools use to connect to outside systems, so that is what 2.1 speaks.
What an external AI can do on your site
Every function comes from a Chat Assistant Pro plugin, so the list depends on which plugins you have enabled:
- Search the site, through Smart Search and the Knowledge Base.
- Search VirtueMart products by keyword, category or price range.
- Check the current stock of a product by SKU.
- Look up an order's status by order number.
- Subscribe an email address to your NS Pro newsletter.
- Search events in Events Booking by date, keyword or location.
- Send a username reminder or password reset email to a user.
You decide what is exposed
A new endpoint publishes nothing. Functions become reachable only after you pick them under Published Functions, so nothing is exposed by accident. You can create several endpoints, each with its own set of functions, for example one for public site search and another for a subscription automation.
Access works with tokens:
- One token per connected service. The client sends it as an
Authorization: BearerorX-API-Keyheader, never in the URL. - Tokens are stored as a hash. Each one is shown once, right after saving. If you lose it, you generate a new one.
- Each token runs as a Joomla user you choose. That user's permissions and access levels apply to every call. Leave it as a guest and the service sees public content only.
- Blocking a user revokes their tokens. A token tied to a blocked or deleted user is refused.
If every function on an endpoint is safe for anonymous visitors, you can also allow access without a token. The list view flags those endpoints clearly.
How to set it up
- Go to Components → Chat Assistant Pro → MCP Servers and create a new endpoint.
- Choose the functions it should publish.
- On the Access tab, add a token, press Generate, and save. Copy the token from the message at the top of the page.
- Give the endpoint URL and the token to your MCP client.
A menu item is optional. It only gives the endpoint a tidier address.
This is a starting point
The functions above are a proof of concept for something larger. Because every function is provided by a plugin, anything a Joomla site or one of its extensions can do could be offered the same way, enabled per site and per extension.
Each plugin has an Expose functions over MCP switch, and third-party plugins expose nothing unless their author opts in. That keeps the door open for other extensions to add their own functions without changing the component.
Also in this release
| Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Module button text, width and height | Three new module options let you put a label on the chat button and size it without editing CSS. |
| VirtueMart product search | The assistant now returns published products only. |
| Non-Latin text in function results | Characters such as Greek or Cyrillic are passed to the AI as written instead of as escape codes. |
| Additional Instructions | Additional Instructions are now applied correctly with OpenAI models. |
| MySQL compatibility | The update script no longer relies on MariaDB-only syntax, so updates run cleanly on MySQL. |
Chat Assistant Pro 2.1.3200 is available now through the Joomla updater.