Documentation

System Requirements

Before installing EchoAI, ensure your server meets the following requirements.

Installation Guide

Follow these steps to get EchoAI up and running on your Sngine site. Each step below includes the most common thing that trips people up, based on real support tickets.

AI Chat

The core of EchoAI – a powerful, real‑time conversational AI experience.

Key Features

• Real‑time streaming – responses appear character by character (DeepSeek).
• Thinking Mode – enables DeepSeek's reasoning engine, showing live reasoning steps with a timer.
• Multi‑language responses – auto‑detects the user's language and replies accordingly.
• Code block minimap – VS‑Code‑style minimap for long code snippets.
• Image generation – integrated with OpenAI DALL‑E or DeepSeek (text description).
• File & image uploads – attach a photo, PDF, or document via the paperclip button. The file stages as a small preview above the message box, so you can add a caption (or send it as-is) before it ever posts — nothing is sent the moment you pick a file. Sending an image with a caption gets a real AI reply, the same as a normal message.
• Stop Generating – cancel a response mid-stream with one click.
• Time-aware responses – the AI knows the current date and time, so it can answer things like "what day is it" or reason about recency correctly.
• Time-zone conversion – EchoAI detects each user's browser time zone and now actually uses it: ask "what time is 15:30 UTC for me?" and get a real, computed local time back – not a guess.
• Scope Restriction – admins can confine the assistant to a specific set of topics (e.g. a single game or product) using a real AI classification call rather than keyword blocking. See AI Management.
• Hero / Unit Combos – admin-curated pairing data grounds tactical/combo questions in verified answers instead of an improvised one. See AI Management.
• Troop / Unit Calculator – admins enter real per-level resource costs and players get exact training/upgrade calculations computed on the server, never guessed by the AI. See AI Management.
• Import Conversations – bring chats in from ChatGPT, DeepSeek or another AI (.zip or .json export). See Incognito & Import.
• Incognito Mode – a per-message toggle for chats that are never saved to history or memory. See Incognito & Import.
• Mobile-friendly header – on phones the top bar keeps only the essentials; AdminCP and Settings are in the sidebar menu.

Thinking Mode

When Thinking Mode is enabled (per package permission), the AI shows its reasoning process before delivering the final answer. This is perfect for complex queries where transparency builds trust.

Incognito Mode & Import Conversations

Incognito Mode

The button in the message bar starts a private chat. Incognito chats are never saved to the history or to memory, and they disappear the moment the member closes the tab, disconnects or starts a New Chat.

• The first time, a short warning explains what Incognito does; after that it opens directly.
• A banner stays visible while Incognito is active, so it's always clear the chat won't be kept.
• Tokens are still spent as normal — Incognito is a privacy feature, not free usage.
• Admins can switch the feature on or off in AdminCP → Settings.

Import Conversations

Members can bring their chats over from other AI apps: Settings → Data & Storage → Import Conversations → upload a .zip or .json export from ChatGPT, DeepSeek or another AI. Titles, messages and their order are kept, and the imported chats can be continued right away.

• ChatGPT/OpenAI exports are recognised automatically.
• Other exports work when they contain a title and a list of messages (role + content), including block-style content and chat_messages lists.
• If nothing can be recognised, the member gets a clear message instead of an empty import.

The same tab also has Download (all chats, or folders with their chats) and the danger-zone options.

Install as App (PWA)

EchoAI can be installed to the home screen (Android, iOS) or the desktop (Chrome, Edge) like a native app — it opens full-screen, without the browser bar, and keeps its own icon.

• Built in: manifest.php (app name from your AI Brand Name, icon from your Favicon setting) and a service worker are included — nothing to configure.
• Install App row: in Settings → Support & About, members see "Install App" as soon as their browser offers installation.
• iOS: Safari → Share → Add to Home Screen.
• HTTPS is required — browsers only offer installation on secure sites.

Token & Pricing System

EchoAI includes a flexible, monetizable token system that gives you full control over pricing.

Pricing Models

Package Management

Admins can create and manage token packages from the admin panel → Packages. Each package includes:

• Tokens – the initial token balance
• Daily / Weekly / Monthly Limits – usage caps per period
• Reset Period – daily, weekly, or monthly token reset
• Thinking Mode – enable/disable for this package
• Memory Limit – max memory entries per user

Memory System

EchoAI remembers important facts about users, creating a personalised experience across conversations.

Features

• Per‑conversation memory – AI remembers facts within a specific chat.
• Global memory – if enabled, the AI remembers across all conversations.
• Memory limits – per‑user, per‑entry, and per‑conversation limits.
• Package‑based memory limit – premium packages can have more memory entries.
• Import / Export – admins can export memories as JSON.

Admin Controls

• Clear all memories
• Clear memories for a specific user
• View memory usage statistics

Personality System

Allow users to customise their AI experience – available to selected packages.

What Users Can Customise

• AI Name – give the AI a custom name
• Color Theme – choose from 9 themes, including animated colours
• Background URL – set a custom background image
• Disable Filters – bypass the blocklist (if allowed by admin)
• Custom JSON Responses – trigger‑based custom replies
• URL Mask – generate a custom URL for your AI persona (e.g., yourdomain.com/ai/yourname)
• Quick Action Buttons – add up to 4 custom buttons that trigger predefined prompts or actions, and change or replace any button at any time.

Image Generation

Users can generate images directly from the chat interface using natural language prompts.

• OpenAI DALL‑E – full image generation with local caching.
• DeepSeek – generates a detailed text description of the requested image (useful for budget‑friendly setups).
• Local Storage – images are saved to disk in organised year/month/day folders and served from your own server rather than a third-party link.
• Duplicate Caching – identical prompts return the cached image, saving tokens.
• Push notification on completion – if Firebase push is configured, the user gets a browser notification the moment their image is ready, even if they've navigated away from the chat — see Push Notifications.

Admins can set the cost per image in Settings → Costs & Tokens.

Folder Settings

Organise your conversations like never before. EchoAI now lets users create custom folders to group chats, assign colours and emojis, and save conversations for quick access.

How It Works

• Click the "+" button in the sidebar to create a new folder.
• Enter a folder name, select a colour from the palette, and choose an emoji.
• Once created, the folder appears in your sidebar. Drag any conversation into it, or use the conversation menu to move it.
• Folders are saved per user – each user has their own set of folders.
• Admins can manage folder settings globally, including limiting the number of folders per user, and set files/chats/folders to auto-delete after a chosen period (e.g. 1 week).

AI Media Search

Supercharge your community by enabling AI-powered search for Sngine posts directly from the EchoAI interface.

How It Works

• When enabled, a icon appears in the chat input area.
• Click the icon to activate Search Mode – the input placeholder changes to "Search public posts...".
• Type your query (e.g., "recent updates about AI") and send. The AI will search Sngine's public posts.
• The response will include a list of matching posts with:
• Post content (snippet)
• Author – who posted it
• URL – a clickable link to the original post
• Users can then click the link to view the full post on your site.

Library

Now all images and files are automatically organised in a central Library, with a refreshed design — pill-style tabs for switching between views and clearer, more polished cards for every file and image.

When a user generates an image or sends a file, it is automatically added to their personal library. The library offers three views:

• All – shows both images and files together.
• Images – only generated or uploaded images.
• Files – only uploaded files (PDF, DOC, etc.).
• Playground – saved Coding Playground projects, if the plugin is installed.

Users can browse, sort, and delete items from their library. This makes it easy to keep track of all generated content and uploaded documents in one place.

Push Notifications

EchoAI can send a real browser push notification when something the user asked for finishes in the background — most commonly, "Your image is ready" once an AI image generation completes. Tapping the notification takes the user straight back into that conversation, even if they've closed the tab.

Since Update 1.5, push notifications run on Firebase Cloud Messaging (free). OneSignal is no longer used — if you configured it before, those fields can be left as they are.

Enabling / Disabling the "Image Ready" Notification

On the same Notifications settings page, toggle "Notify user when an AI-generated image is ready". It is on by default once Firebase is enabled.

Extensions

EchoAI now supports a powerful Extensions system that lets you expand functionality with plugins and themes.

Navigate to AdminCP → AI & Modules → Addons to manage everything. The Installed, Plugins and Themes tabs let you:

• View – every available extension with its version and status (Enabled / Disabled).
• Install – upload the extension's folder into echoai/Extensions/plugins/ (or themes/) via FTP or your File Manager; it then appears in the list with an Install button.
• Buy – premium extensions show a Buy button with their price.
• Enable / Disable – switch an extension off without uninstalling it.
• Settings – extensions with options open their own settings (EchoBot opens its full Command Center).
• Delete – remove an extension.

The badge at the top shows the Default AI Provider that extensions use — change it in Settings → AI Configuration.

🤖 EchoBot (Premium Plugin)

Transform your Sngine chat into a powerful command center! With EchoBot, users can effortlessly manage their entire social presence using natural language – no more navigating complex menus.

Buy link: https://portasale.com/items/echobot-command-center-for-sngine-powered-by-echoai/1146

EchoBot does two things: chat commands (members manage their own account by typing in the EchoAI chat — listed below) and AI bots (Fake Generator accounts that answer messages, comments and tags, handle friend requests and follows, and post on a natural schedule).

Commands that EchoBot can run:

Content Generation Commands (AI writes, then asks where to publish):

• write something about [topic]
• generate a post about [topic]
• generate content about [topic]
• write about [topic]
• write a blog about [topic] (if you don't specify where to publish)
• generate a post about [topic] with an image

Publishing Target Commands (after generating content):

• profile
• page [page name]
• group [group name]
• post to [page name] page
• post to [group name] group

Friend Commands:

• send friend request to [name]
• add [name] as friend
• accept friend request from [name]
• accept [name]'s friend request
• decline friend request from [name]
• remove [name] from friends
• unfriend [name]

Advanced Commands (specify where to publish directly):

• post [text] to my profile
• post [text] to page [name]
• post [text] to group [name]
• post a photo of [subject] to [page name] page
• write a blog about [topic] on page [name]
• write a blog about [topic] on group [name]
• post [text] to [user name]'s wall

Confirmation Responses:

• yes / y / confirm / do it / proceed / go ahead – confirm delete
• no / n / cancel / stop / nevermind / never mind – cancel delete

💻 Coding Playground (Free)

A powerful AI coding assistant with live preview, multi-file support, project management, and advanced code generation — all inside the Playground.

Giving ability for users to generate code, full structure code to HTML/CSS/JS, PHP, Python and more.

You can find the addon in AdminCP → Addons → Plugins → Coding Playground Pro

EchoBot AI Bots

With the paid EchoBot 1.1 add-on, accounts created in Sngine AdminCP → Tools → Fake Generator become AI support or community bots. A bot answers private messages, comments and @mentions, handles friend requests and follows, and can post and engage on a natural schedule — always through its own Sngine account, using Sngine's own messaging, comment, reaction and posting functions, so notifications work exactly as if a person did it.

Where: AdminCP → Addons → EchoBot → Settings opens the EchoBot Command Center. It needs EchoAI 1.6 and your OpenAI or DeepSeek key from EchoAI's API Keys — no separate AI keys.

{
  "bot_name": "Support Assistant",
  "role": "Technical Support Assistant",
  "instructions": ["Explain features clearly.", "Escalate unresolved issues to the admins."],
  "knowledge": { "login": "Reset your password from the login page (Forgotten password?)." },
  "faq": [ { "q": "How do I change my avatar?", "a": "Profile → click your picture → Upload." } ],
  "auto_replies": [ { "keywords": ["password"], "reply": "You can reset it from the login page." } ]
}

Dashboard

The home base for admins – a quick overview of your entire system.

• Total Users – registered users count
• Total Tokens – tokens in circulation
• Text Generations – total AI text requests
• Images Generated – total images created
• AI Commands – number of custom commands
• Blocked Topics – active blocklist entries

Quick action buttons give you one‑click access to Users, Packages, Commands, Blocklist, and Settings.

Users

The user management hub – view, search, and manage all registered accounts.

Actions Available

• Search & Filter – by name, email, status (active/blocked), token balance
• Token Management – add, remove, or set exact token balance
• Block / Unblock – with custom reason
• Clear Memory – remove all AI memories for a user
• Delete Chats – permanently remove all conversations
• View Stats – message count, conversation count, daily/weekly/monthly usage, language preference, memory mode

Packages

Manage your pricing and service tiers – both Sngine subscriptions and EchoAI's own standalone token packages.

Sngine Packages

View and edit AI‑specific settings for each Sngine subscription package:

• Token amount
• Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Hourly limits
• Reset period
• Cost per text, image, file
• Thinking Mode toggle
• Memory limit

EchoAI Standalone Subscriptions

As of Update 1.3, EchoAI packages no longer have to ride on top of Sngine's own subscription system — you can give any EchoAI package its own price and sell it directly through EchoAI's built-in Payments system (PayPal or the custom bank-transfer provider), completely independent of Sngine.

• Set a Price on any package to make it purchasable directly.
• Link a package to a PayPal Plan ID for automatic recurring billing (see Payments → PayPal for how to create one).
• Leave the price at 0 to keep a package free/manual, exactly as before — nothing changes for packages you don't touch.
• Tokens, limits, reset period, Thinking Mode toggle, and Memory limit all work the same as Sngine-linked packages.
• Bulk token management: refresh, pause, resume, delete.

Payments

As of Update 1.3, EchoAI can accept payment for its own standalone packages directly — without routing through Sngine's subscription system at all. Two providers are supported, and you can enable either one, both, or neither.

AI Management

Fine‑tune the AI's behaviour and capabilities.

Commands

Create custom slash commands (e.g., /help, /summarize) that users can type to trigger specific AI responses. Each command can have its own system prompt.

Blocklist

Add forbidden words or phrases. If a user's message contains a blocked word, the request is rejected with a custom response.

API Keys

Manage your DeepSeek and OpenAI API keys, including the new GPT-5.6 model family (Sol, Terra, and Luna versions). Test each key with a single click to verify it's working.

Scope Restriction

The opposite of the Blocklist: instead of listing what's forbidden, list exactly what the assistant is allowed to talk about (e.g. a specific game, product, or service). Turn on Strict Scope Mode and add one or more allowed topics – every message is then classified against that list by a real AI call before it's answered, not just keyword matching, so ordinary phrasing that never says the topic's name by name still gets recognised correctly. Greetings and questions about the assistant itself always stay allowed. If no API key is configured yet, or the classifier call fails for any reason, Scope Restriction fails open – it never locks users out due to a transient error.

Hero / Unit Combos

Built for gaming communities. Enter a combo (a set of unit or hero names, plus your own description of how they work together), and whenever a user's message mentions any of those names, that combo's description is automatically pulled into the AI's context as verified data – so it answers with your team's actual, tested pairing instead of an AI-invented one that only sounds plausible.

Troop / Unit Calculator

Also built for gaming communities that manage resource-based progression (training or upgrading units/troops using in-game resources). Enter the real cost to train or upgrade each level (up to 4 configurable resource types – not locked to any specific game's terminology), and a player can ask something like "I have 1M mana, 800k ore, 500k wood, and 2M stone – how many level V troops can I train?" and get an exact number back. The arithmetic is always computed by EchoAI's own code from your configured costs – never left to the AI to calculate – so the answer is exact every time, including which resource is the limiting factor.

AI Models

Pick the text model in AdminCP → Settings → AI Configuration: choose the Default Text Generator API (OpenAI or DeepSeek), then the model in OpenAI Model Settings or DeepSeek Model Settings. Chat, the Coding Playground and extensions (such as EchoBot) all follow this choice.

Security

Login session verification (1.6)

EchoAI identifies members through Sngine's login. Since 1.6 it checks the full Sngine session — the c_user cookie and the xs session token, matched against Sngine's users_sessions table — before trusting who is logged in. This happens once, in includes/session_guard.php, for every page, API call and admin action.

• Why it matters: before 1.6, a visitor could set a fake c_user cookie and open AdminCP or chat as another member. Please update every site to 1.6.
• The legacy user_session cookie fallback now only accepts plain token characters (it could be used for SQL injection before).
• Members stay signed in — existing Sngine sessions already have the token that is checked.
• EchoAI must run on the same domain as Sngine (e.g. yoursite.com/echoai), because it uses Sngine's login cookies.

Keep these private

• includes/config.php, includes/db_config.php, includes/db_config_cache.php and includes/installed.lock belong to one site — they hold its database password. They are not in the download, the updater never overwrites them, and they must never be copied to another site or shared.
• Rename or delete installation.php after installing (see Re-Installation).
• API keys, the Firebase Service Account JSON, and the EchoBot worker key (shown on the Runner tab for URL-only crons) should never be posted publicly.

Content

Tools for communicating with your users and collecting feedback.

Announcements

Send global news, maintenance alerts, or feature updates to all users. Announcements appear as in‑app notifications.

Reports & Feedback

View user‑submitted reports and feedback. Mark them as resolved, reply, or take action (e.g., ban a user).

System

Core configuration and technical administration.

Settings

The central configuration panel. Adjust everything from the AI name and avatar to pricing models, memory limits, and feature toggles.

• General – AI brand name, avatar icon, system prompt, default language
• AI Configuration – default API providers, model selection, temperature
• Costs & Tokens – pricing model, token costs, thinking mode cost
• Memory – context window size, max memory entries
• Language – allow users to change language
• Personality – enable personality system, select allowed packages
• Feedback – disable like/dislike, copy, or report buttons
• Social Post Search – enable/disable AI search for Sngine posts
• Notifications – configure Firebase push notifications, see Push Notifications

Live Stats

Real‑time monitoring: online users, today's activity, token usage trends, device breakdown, top users, and feedback statistics.

Logs

Historical record of admin actions – every settings change, user block, token adjustment, and more, logged with IP and user agent for security auditing. Update 1.3 adds a dedicated Error Log alongside the admin action log, so you can see server-side errors (failed API calls, database issues, etc.) without needing shell/FTP access to your host's raw PHP error log.

Cron Jobs

EchoAI relies on a daily cron job to reset user tokens and usage counters. This is essential for the token system to work correctly.

The Cron Command

Add this to your server's crontab (e.g., via HestiaCP, cPanel, or crontab -e):

0 0 * * * php /home/user/web/yourdomain.com/public_html/echoai/cron/reset_tokens.php >> /home/user/logs/echoai_reset.log 2>&1

What It Does

• Checks every user's last_reset timestamp against their package's reset_period (daily, weekly, or monthly).
• If the period has passed, it resets the token balance to the package's token amount and sets usage counters to 0.
• Updates last_reset to the current time.

Other Cron Jobs

If you've enabled EchoAI's standalone Payments system, also add the payment cron job — it checks pending PayPal subscriptions and handles renewal bookkeeping between webhook calls:

*/30 * * * * php /home/user/web/yourdomain.com/public_html/echoai/cron/payment_cron.php >> /home/user/logs/echoai_payment.log 2>&1

Two more daily jobs keep things tidy:

0 1 * * * php /home/user/web/yourdomain.com/public_html/echoai/cron/cleanup_memories.php >/dev/null 2>&1
0 6 * * * php /home/user/web/yourdomain.com/public_html/echoai/cron/check_updates.php >/dev/null 2>&1

• cleanup_memories.php – deletes expired memories (per package retention) and updates the memory analytics.
• check_updates.php – checks your Update Feed URL and shows a banner in AdminCP when a new version is out. It never downloads or applies anything by itself.

If you use the EchoBot AI Bots add-on, add its worker every minute so bots answer within seconds:

* * * * * php /home/user/web/yourdomain.com/public_html/echoai/Extensions/plugins/echobot/bots/worker.php >/dev/null 2>&1

Testing a Cron Job

You can run any of these scripts manually to test them:

php /home/user/web/yourdomain.com/public_html/echoai/cron/reset_tokens.php

If you see output like Completed. X users had their tokens reset., it's working.

Updating EchoAI

Keeping EchoAI up‑to‑date ensures you have the latest features, bug fixes, and security patches. Every download contains two folders: 1-Clean-Install/ for new sites and 2-Update-from-…/ for existing ones.

🚀 Updating to 1.6 (from 1.4 or 1.5)

1.6 is a security update — please install it. No database changes are needed.

📦 How the in-app updater works

• An update ZIP mirrors the echoai folder and contains an update.json (version, requirements, changelog). Optional .sql files run first, in alphabetical order.
• Every replaced file is backed up to admin/backups/<date>/ (as name.php_<time>.bak) — copy them back to roll back.
• Automatic update checking: point the Update Feed URL at the JSON feed from your purchase and enable checking — AdminCP shows a banner when a newer version is available. Applying an update always stays your decision.

🧹 After updating

• Browser cache — hard refresh with Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac).
• PHP OPcache — some hosts cache compiled PHP; restart PHP-FPM or use your panel's "Restart PHP" button.
• CDN / page cache — purge Cloudflare, LiteSpeed Cache or similar.

🔄 Post‑Update Verification Checklist

1. AdminCP → Update shows the new version.
2. Hard refresh and re-test the features the update was about, not just "does the chat still load".
3. Check Admin → Error Logs for anything new right after the update.
4. Verify the cron jobs still run (tokens reset, EchoBot's Runner tab says Running).
5. If something still looks wrong, check the FAQ or contact support with the exact version and what you see.

Changelog

All notable changes to EchoAI are documented here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Quick answers to the most common questions about EchoAI.