AI Product Questions Manual.

How to generate typical questions and answers per product via AI and show them as a chat or FAQ on the product detail page.

System requirements

Shopware 6.7, an API key with one of the supported AI providers and a valid licence token. The plugin is part of the Stone & Water plugin suite.

Installation

The direct edition installs through an upload in the admin, no SSH access needed. After activation the menu entry appears under Extensions, Stone & Water - Plugin Suite.

Activating the licence

Until activation the admin shows a licence screen with an input field. The check is bound to the shop domain and works fail-closed: without a valid licence the widget is not rendered in the storefront. If the licence server is unreachable, a three day tolerance applies.

About the domain: The admin check and the storefront verify against the same host, so staging systems need their own licence entry.

Opening the settings

In the admin under Extensions, Stone & Water - Plugin Suite, AI Product Questions. That is where provider settings, bulk generation and single generation live.

Providers and models

Four providers are supported: OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and Google. For each one you store an API key and pick a model.

The model list is maintained over time. Older models stay at the end of the list marked as older so existing configurations keep working after an update. Mistral entries point at -latest aliases and therefore always resolve to the newest version.

Prompt instruction

The prompt instruction permanently shapes content and tone of the generated texts - concise and technical, focused on use cases, or in your shop's own voice.

Multilingual shops

Content is produced per shop language. For the run, product data is loaded in the target language, the AI writes in that language, and the entries are stored under the matching language. The storefront then automatically serves the texts of the active shop language.

Content language is a multi-select with chips. The run is executed once per selected language. Without a selection the system language applies.

Text language defines where the writing language comes from: automatically from the locale of the shop language, or fixed. The fixed choice is useful when a shop language should deliberately be filled with texts in another language.

On the locale: the writing language is derived from the locale, not from the display name of the shop language. Languages with a custom name such as "DE Aspire" are therefore recognised correctly.

Several sales channels

Sales channels are a multi-select with chips too, directly above the content language. The run is executed once per combination of channel and language, using the settings of each channel. Without a selection the general configuration applies.

With a channel selected, the run only covers products assigned to that channel - the article count in the overview follows that selection as well. An explicit product selection still takes precedence.

Progress and errors

The run opens a window that states the planned scope up front: all selected channels and languages. During the run it shows the current pass as "x of y" with the current channel and language, plus a bar and counters for products, processed and skipped articles.

Error messages stay in plain words until you close the window. Instead of "no content generated", the message names the actual cause: error text from the AI service, HTTP status, truncation by length or safety filter, refusal, connection error, or missing product master data in the chosen language.

Time limit: a request may take up to 120 seconds. Long answers in SEO question style exceeded the former limit and were wrongly treated as errors.

Bulk generation

The bulk run generates questions, answers and pros and cons for many products in one go. Processing happens in batches whose size you control through the parallel processing setting. At the end you get a summary of generated, skipped and failed products.

Filters and scope

Active products only
Disabled products are skipped in the bulk run.
New products only
Products that already have texts are left out.
Overwrite
Existing texts are replaced instead of skipped.
Manufacturers
Restricts the run to selected manufacturers.
Limit
Caps how many products a single run processes.

Regenerating a single product

For targeted fixes there is a separate area with product search by name or article number. Several products can be picked one after another; they appear as chips below the search field and can be removed with an X. Products already picked are hidden from the search results.

Optionally you can add an instruction that applies to this run only - a content focus or a different tone, for example. It is passed in addition to the configured prompt instruction.

A deliberate exception: In single mode the selected product is always processed, even when „active products only" is switched on.

Targeted generation lives in its own "Individual products" tab between Generation and Settings; the Generation tab now contains only the bulk run.

The search finds products by name and by article number, variants included. A chosen variant is resolved to its parent product and that number is shown; if a variant has no name of its own, the article number serves as the name.

On variant numbers: numbers such as "AS02379-01" belong to variants. The search checks exact match, upper case, partial match and the base number - all four routes lead to the parent product.

How it appears on the product page

The product detail page shows a chat area with a headline, an input field and a send button. The bundled default headline is „Ask me anything about this product", with a note below explaining that the digital advisor, like a human, can occasionally get things wrong.

If the AI has no basis for an answer, it says so clearly instead of guessing. On technical problems an error message asks the customer to try again later.

Showing quick facts

Above the chat and FAQ you can show a row of compact chips with the key details of the article: product name, article number, manufacturer, availability and price. Each entry can be switched on individually, per sales channel.

If you select none of them, the area does not appear at all - the chips are entirely optional.

Tip: less is usually more here. Two or three entries work as a quick overview, five chips compete with the product data above them.

Variants in the chat

When a customer picks a variant on the product page - colour or size, for example - the chosen options are passed to the AI as context. Answers then refer to the version actually being viewed rather than to the product in general.

If a variant has no description of its own, the plugin falls back to the one from the main product. Answers stay useful even when variants are only thinly maintained.

Pros and cons

Alongside questions and answers the plugin generates a list of pros and cons per product, rendered as its own block and marked as coming from the AI product advisor.

SEO settings

Four settings affect visibility in search engines. All are off by default, so existing installations do not change by themselves.

Own URL per question: every question gets a shareable address and opens automatically when called. Optionally a chain icon appears next to it for copying directly.FAQ markup: the questions are marked up as an FAQPage so search engines can present them in the results. The addresses of individual questions are included where enabled.SEO question style: questions are generated as fully worded search queries, with answers of 40 to 60 words. Takes effect from the next generation.Internal linking: products mentioned in the answers are linked to their product page, at most three per answer. Linked are cross-selling partners and articles from the same manufacturer.
Important: FAQ markup requires the content to be rendered server side. If that is switched off, the admin points it out below the toggle.

A dedicated FAQ subpage per product

With this setting all questions for an article also appear as a standalone, indexable page. It carries the questions and answers, the pros and cons, its own page title with description and a link back to the product. The widget links to it below the footnote.

"URL structure of the FAQ subpage" defines the address: product ID, article name, article number, or article name and number together. Umlauts and special characters are transliterated into URL-safe characters.

Links already shared stay valid: the page resolves all address variants, including the plain product ID. Changing the pattern therefore breaks no links already in circulation.

The address of the subpage uses the full article name, truncated at a word boundary at 255 characters - exactly as Shopware handles SEO addresses. Earlier truncations at 80 characters remain resolvable through fallbacks, so links already shared keep working.

Robust resolution: a name address is resolved in stages - first against the canonical SEO addresses of the sales channel, then through a targeted name search, finally through full-text search. With very long names a second attempt with a shortened term follows, and if the result is a variant parent without its own channel visibility, a variant fallback applies.

Scope of generation

In bulk generation the "Scope" selection decides what is regenerated. With "Pros and cons only" the existing questions stay untouched - useful when the questions are already indexed and only the assessment needs reworking.

For individual products there is a dedicated button for this. Both save cost with the AI provider because only the desired part is regenerated.

Generation per sales channel

The channel selection is also available in the Generation tab. Bulk and single generation then use the settings of the chosen channel: AI provider, language, number of questions, question style and the selected product details.

Note on saving: saving with a channel selected now stores only actual deviations from the general configuration. Redundant overrides are cleaned up so later general changes take effect again.

Permissions and protection

Administrative access to the plugin is bound to dedicated permissions, separated into viewing and editing. Anyone with read-only rights in the Shopware admin can therefore see statistics but not generate or delete.

Free-text input in the shop - the option for visitors to ask their own question - is explicitly switched off until you enable it. When active, requests are rate limited per sender: at most eight per minute, after which the shop rejects further requests.

Why this matters: without rate limiting a single visitor could trigger any number of AI requests at your expense through the free-text input.

Where the texts are stored

The texts live in a dedicated table called staw_product_question_direct. The direct and store editions deliberately use separate tables so they can run side by side. When updating from an older version an existing old table is renamed automatically and the data is preserved.

Troubleshooting

The widget does not appear in the shop

Without a valid licence it is deliberately not rendered. Also check whether texts have been generated for that product at all.

Generation stops or reports errors

Usually a valid API key is missing or the chosen model is not enabled with the provider. The summary at the end of the run states the number of errors.

Products are being skipped

That is expected with „new products only" enabled, or when texts already exist and „overwrite" is off.

The licence is rejected in the admin

The check uses the host of the request. Opening the admin through a domain other than the licensed one makes it fail.

Support

We are happy to help with provider choice, prompt instructions or licensing. Get in touch via the contact page or write to info@stoneandwater.online.

Through the store or directly from us.

Two routes, the same feature set - pick whichever suits your setup.

Directly from Stone & Water

Available right now

Monthly14,99 €
Half-yearly74,99 €17 % cheaper
Best valueYearly134,99 €25 % cheaper

All prices net, plus VAT.

You buy the licence directly from us and get an invoice from us. Install by upload in the admin without SSH, updates through our licensing platform, support straight from the developer.

Ask us directly +49 2555 9997342

Shopware Store

Available now

Listed in the official Shopware Community Store. Installation and updates run through the plugin manager, billing through your Shopware account. Store conditions differ from ours.

View in the Shopware Store

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