See it live
Sprout is live on this website — look for the sprout launcher in the bottom-right corner and say hello.
At a Glance
Project Overview
Mustard Seeds Group wanted a friendly, always-available assistant on its website — one that could explain its services, point visitors to free tools and learning resources, and guide genuine enquiries toward getting in touch. The catch: it had to feel unmistakably on-brand, answer only from trustworthy information, and avoid the cost and security trade-offs of a generic, bolted-on chatbot.
The result is Sprout: a branded chat assistant whose conversational brain is a Microsoft Copilot Studio agent answering from the company's public documentation, wrapped in a fully custom front-end widget connected over Direct Line. A lightweight token broker keeps the connection secure, and the whole thing drops onto the site as a single embeddable component.
Key Features
- Grounded Answers — Replies are generated from Mustard Seeds Group's own public documentation, not invented, so the assistant stays accurate and on-message
- On-Brand by Design — A bespoke widget with the brand's typography, colours, sprout motif, and gentle motion — not a generic third-party bubble
- Graceful Handoff — When a question is out of scope or a visitor wants a person, Sprout points them to the contact page instead of guessing
- Anonymous & Frictionless — No sign-in required; any visitor can ask a question instantly
- Rich, Readable Replies — Formatted text, lists, and links render cleanly, with an expandable, resizable chat panel
- Mobile-First — The panel goes full-screen on phones and adapts fluidly to any viewport
- Secure by Architecture — The channel secret never reaches the browser; a token broker issues short-lived access tokens instead
Technology Stack
Microsoft Copilot Studio
The agent's brain — generative answers grounded in the company's public documentation, with built-in escalation to the contact page.
Direct Line + Token Broker
A custom front-end talks to the agent over Direct Line; a Google Cloud Function brokers short-lived tokens so the secret never ships to the browser.
Vanilla JS Widget
A single self-contained widget in plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — no framework, no build step, easy to embed on any page.
Google Cloud + CDN
Static site served from Cloud Storage behind a load balancer and Cloud CDN for fast, global delivery.
Challenges & Solutions
Keeping credentials safe on a public site
Connecting a custom front-end to the agent requires a channel secret — but anything placed in browser code is visible to everyone and could be abused.
We built a small token-broker Cloud Function that holds the secret server-side and hands the widget only a short-lived Direct Line token. The secret never leaves the back end, and tokens expire automatically.
Looking like the brand, not a bolt-on bot
Off-the-shelf chat embeds carry their own generic look and feel, which undermines a carefully designed brand and erodes trust.
Rather than an iframe, we built a bespoke widget using the brand's fonts, palette, and a custom sprout motif with subtle animation — a launcher, greeting, quick-reply chips, and a polished chat panel that feel native to the site.
Being helpful without making things up
A public assistant must never invent prices, timelines, or facts — but it also shouldn't dead-end a genuine enquiry.
The agent answers only from approved public documentation. When it can't help, or a visitor asks to talk to a person, it escalates by directing them to the contact page — turning unknowns into leads instead of guesses.
Readable replies, not a wall of text
Generated answers arrive as formatted text; shown raw, that means stray asterisks and dense, hard-to-scan paragraphs.
We added safe, lightweight formatting so headings, lists, and links render properly, plus an expandable and resizable panel so visitors can size the conversation to suit longer answers.
Results
Live on Every Page
A branded assistant available across the whole site, around the clock
Secret-Safe
Token-broker architecture keeps credentials off the browser
On-Brand & Accurate
Answers grounded in approved docs, in the company's own voice
Works Everywhere
Responsive, anonymous, and frictionless on any device
How This Could Work for You
The same approach adapts to almost any organisation that has documentation worth surfacing — support FAQs, product information, policies, or service details. We can ground an assistant in your content, dress it in your brand, and deploy it securely as a single widget, with a clear path for handing real enquiries to your team.
Because it answers only from sources you approve and carries no per-seat licensing, it scales sensibly from a small business site to a larger knowledge base — accessible AI, whatever your size or technical maturity.