What is Ask Bob?

Ask Bob brings community knowledge into Garry's Mod. Ask a question in plain words, and Bob finds the wiki page, doc entry or Ponder lesson that answers it, without you leaving the game.

Overview Building in Garry's Mod means knowledge is spread across many places: the ACE wiki, the Wiremod and StarfallEx docs, the PAC3 wiki, the Garry's Mod wiki, Discord pins and source code. Bob searches all of them at once and shows you the best match first.

Bob is a search engine, not a chatbot. He doesn't invent answers. He shows you the page that has the answer, with a link to its source. When nothing matches well, he says so instead of guessing.

Bob is made by the ACE team, but he's for everyone in Garry's Mod, whether or not you play ACE.

Where to find Bob
- Q menu: the "Ask Bob" spawnmenu tab.

- C menu: right-click any entity and pick Ask Bob about this . Bob opens with that entity as a chip, so you can ask "how do I reload this" without naming it.

- "What is this?" key: look at something and press the key. Set it in Q menu → Options → Utilities → Ask Bob.

- E2 and Starfall editors: an Ask Bob button in the toolbar. It searches your selection, the word under the caret, or the last error.

- Chat: !bob <question> or !ask <question> .

- Console: askbob [question] and askbob_whatisthis .

Tip: For "what does this one function do", E2Helper and SFHelper are quicker. Bob is for "how do I…" questions: tutorials, guides and examples.

Searching Type a question the way you'd ask a friend: how do I make a hologram , armor angles , link gun to ammo .

- Quick answer: when a page answers the question directly, Bob shows that section at the top.

- Results: below it, matching pages from every source, each marked with where it came from.

- Reading: wiki articles open inside Bob, so you can read them in game. Other links open through Steam's "leaving the game" prompt.

Filters The buttons under the search box narrow where Bob looks: ACE , Starfall , Wiremod , PAC3 and GMod wiki , plus Other for the rest of the org wikis. Each library button covers its docs and its partner organization's wiki.

You can also type a filter into the question with a + , for example hook.Add +gmod or holograms +sf .

GMod wiki The GMod wiki filter searches the Garry's Mod wiki (through gmodwiki.com ) for Garry's Mod's own Lua API: functions, hooks, classes and enums. Try ents.Create or how do I use net.Start . GMod wiki pages open in the Steam browser.

In the E2 and Starfall editors, selecting a GMod function name such as ents.Create turns this filter on automatically.

AI answers When a filter's project has AI answers turned on, an AI button appears. It writes an answer from that project's source code instead of listing pages. AI answers are slower and limited to a few per day.

Note: AI answers come from DeepWiki, a third-party service. GMod wiki results come through gmodwiki.com , run by CFC Servers. In both cases your question goes from acegmod.com to that service; your game never contacts it directly.

Ponder lessons If you have Ponder installed, Bob also searches its lessons. A result with a green Show me badge opens an animated, step-by-step lesson that plays right in front of you.

For server owners Convar

Default

What it does

askbob_scope

empty

Default filters for players, e.g. ace,sf

askbob_chat_triggers

!bob,!ask

Chat commands. Bob skips any trigger ULX already uses.

For addon developers When a player asks Bob about one of your entities, Bob builds a chip for it. You can fill in that chip from your own addon with the AskBob.Describe hook. Your addon doesn't need Bob installed: without Bob, the hook simply never runs.

-- client side
hook.Add("AskBob.Describe", "MyAddon", function(ent, chip)
if chip.class ~= "myaddon_engine" then return end
chip.name = ent:GetNWString("EngineName")
chip.query = ent:GetNWString("EngineName")
chip.scope = "myorg" -- your org's slug: search your wiki first
chip.facts[#chip.facts + 1] = { "Power", ent:GetNWInt("kW") .. " kW" }
end)
- facts and description are shown on a card above the results. They stay in the game and are never sent to the website.

- Only query and scope are sent with the search.

- Return false to stop Bob offering a chip for that entity.

Want your addon's docs in Bob? Become a contributor and set up an org wiki. Bob searches it automatically.

Privacy
- What Bob sends: your question and the filter you picked, to acegmod.com only. With an entity chip, its name and class are sent too.

- What Bob doesn't send: no SteamID, name or server address. Like any web request, the site sees your IP.

- What the site keeps: questions, without who asked them, to find gaps in the wiki.

- What comes back: text only. Nothing Bob receives is ever run as code.

Support Bob is free. If he saves you time, consider supporting ACE. There's also a heart button at the top of Bob that takes you there.