> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.illumichat.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Testing

> Batch-test your assistant and grade its answers before going live

Testing lets you check how your assistant answers real questions before you put it in front of customers. You build a set of questions, run them all at once, and see each answer graded — with the knowledge sources the assistant used. Test runs are free and never count against your credits.

## Building a question bank

Open an assistant and go to the **Testing** tab. You can add questions three ways:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Add questions manually">
    Type a question a customer might ask and click **Add question**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Generate from your knowledge base">
    Click **Generate from knowledge base** to create a starter set based on the content your assistant knows. This works even for a brand-new assistant.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Generate from past conversations">
    Click **Generate from past conversations** to turn real questions your customers have already asked into a test set. If the assistant has no history yet, use one of the other options.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Running a test

Click **Run test** to send every question through your assistant. Runs happen in the background, so you can leave the page and come back. Each answer is graded automatically:

* **Good** — relevant, complete, and supported by your content.
* **Acceptable** — mostly right, but incomplete or lightly unsupported.
* **Poor** — off-topic, incorrect, or unsupported.

Each result also shows the knowledge sources the assistant used to answer, so you can see why it responded the way it did. A **Not grounded** flag means the answer made specific claims without a supporting source.

## Seeing the reasoning

Expand **Reasoning** on any result to see how the assistant arrived at its answer:

* **Tools fired** — which tools the assistant used and what it passed them. For a knowledge base search, this is the exact query it ran.
* **Q\&A match** — when the answer came straight from a Q\&A pair, the matched question and its confidence score.
* **Retrieved passages** — the knowledge-base chunks the assistant pulled in, each with its document name and relevance score, so you can judge whether it retrieved the right content.

If a result shows **"No tools were used — the model answered from its instructions alone,"** the assistant answered without consulting your knowledge base. That is expected for small talk, but for a factual question it is a signal to check the answer closely.

<Tip>
  You can see the same reasoning live while chatting in the **Test assistant** panel — expand **Why this answer** under any reply to see the query and passages behind it. This preview is only visible to you; visitors using the real widget never see it.
</Tip>

## Reviewing and overriding grades

You can override any automatic grade with your own judgment using the grade dropdown on each result. Use this to keep track of which answers you have reviewed and to record where the assistant needs better content or instructions.

<Tip>
  If an answer is graded Poor or Not grounded, add or improve the relevant knowledge in the **Knowledge Base** tab, then run the test again.
</Tip>