auth
Panel permissions, unchanged
Tools check the panel's own module, branch and report permissions, so an admin can only ask about what they could already open.
Cortex
AI support assistant — reads only what you're allowed to see
Cortex lives inside the company's admin panel. Admins ask questions in plain English and get answers from live business data in seconds — through read-only tools that respect the panel's own permissions and mask personal data before anything reaches the model.
read-only by designOpenAI tool callingcost-efficient model routingPII masked before the modelautomated evaluation suite
01Architecture
two systems, one signed bridge
The AI service never touches the database directly — it can only call tools the panel exposes, over a narrow, signed channel.
01 · entry
Admin panel chat
- Admins sign in through the existing panel — no extra password
- In-chat thumbs-up / thumbs-down feedback
02 · agent service
Cortex agent — Python (FastAPI)
- OpenAI models with tool calling
- Routes each question to the right model
- Masks personal data before any model call
03 · data tools
Read-only PHP tools
- Inquiries, invoices, payments, attendance, batches, employees, leave, support requests, dashboard metrics
- One tool runs the panel's existing reports on demand
model routing
Lower-cost model handles most questions
- Routine lookups and single-tool answers stay cheap and fast.
model routing
Stronger model takes the harder ones
- Harder, multi-step questions escalate — keeping overall LLM spend cost-efficient.
02Privacy & access control
guardrails, not bypasses
Every answer goes through the same rules the admin panel already enforces — Cortex adds guardrails, it doesn't bypass any.
pii
Personal data masked
Phone numbers, emails and salary data are masked before anything reaches the AI model.
transport
Signed, replay-safe, expiring
Services talk only through HMAC-signed requests over a private Unix socket, protected against replayed requests; chats expire automatically.
03Evaluation & monitoring
tested like any production system
An assistant that reads business data has to be tested and watched like any other production service.
eval
Automated evaluation suite
Built from real admin questions. On its latest full run it passed in full with zero privacy or access leaks.
llmops
LLMOps dashboard
A Next.js dashboard tracks usage, answer rate, response time, AI cost against budget, conversation review and the health of each tool.
feedback
Feedback loop
In-chat thumbs-up / thumbs-down ratings feed back into review, so weak answers surface quickly.
04Agent trace
router → tools → permissions → masking → answer
Pick a sample question to replay the steps Cortex goes through before it answers.
sample questions
admin> choose a sample question
Illustrative only. The real system's tools, prompts and data are private.