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

# Welcome to ProBot

> The motivation and journey behind ProBot.

*By [Vishal Patil](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalrameshpatil/)*

***

<p align="justify">
  Every great tool starts as someone's personal annoyance. ProBot is no
  exception, so let me tell you how it began.
</p>

## The problem: I kept missing recruiters

<p align="justify">
  It always played out the same way. A recruiter would reach out with a genuine
  query or a screening message to get basic details, and by the time I actually
  saw it, the moment had passed. Sometimes it was the time difference, they
  messaged during their morning, I read it during my midnight. Sometimes I was
  heads-down on a project for days. And sometimes the message simply drowned in
  a cluttered inbox, three pages deep, never to be seen again.
</p>

<p align="justify">
  The opportunities were real. My availability wasn't. There had to be a better
  way than hoping I'd refresh my inbox at exactly the right time.
</p>

## So I built VAi

<p align="justify">
  That frustration led me to build **[VAi](https://vishalpatil.vercel.app/)** my
  personal AI assistant that lives right on my portfolio. VAi answers any
  question a recruiter might ask about me, **in my voice**, grounded in my real
  professional data: my
  [resume](https://vishalpatil.vercel.app/Resume_Vishal_Patil.pdf), my
  [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalrameshpatil/) profile, and my
  [portfolio site](https://vishalpatil.vercel.app/). You ask, VAi answers on my
  behalf, 24/7, no matter the timezone or how buried my inbox is.
</p>

<Tip>
  Go [try it out](https://vishalpatil.vercel.app/). It's genuinely fun. Ask it
  anything, poke at it, play around, **eat up my tokens!** <br /> (Ha ha - just
  kidding. It won't actually let you, because it's wrapped in rate limiters,
  input sanitization, and all kinds of guardrails. But you're very welcome to
  try.)
</Tip>

## VAi went viral

<p align="justify">
  I didn't expect what happened next. The story of VAi took off. People loved
  it. My peers loved it. Recruiters *especially* loved it. Chatting with a
  candidate's bot turned out to be far more delightful than skimming yet another
  PDF resume.
</p>

<p align="justify">It even got featured on CNBC.</p>

<Note>
  <p align="justify">
    [These 2 job seekers built AI chatbots to talk to recruiters for them: ‘It
    has opened up a lot of opportunities for
    me’](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/30/these-2-job-seekers-built-ai-chatbots-to-talk-to-recruiters-for-them.html).
  </p>
</Note>

<p align="justify">
  And then the messages started coming in. Not just from developers, from
  designers, marketers, students, career-switchers, people from every field. All
  asking the same thing:
</p>

> "This is amazing. How do I get a bot like VAi for myself?"

<p align="justify">
  Most of them couldn't build one from scratch. But all of them wanted one. That
  was the spark. I realized the real problem wasn't *my* missed recruiter
  replies anymore, it was that **everyone** deserved their own VAi, without
  needing to write a single line of code.
</p>

<p align="justify">So I set out to solve it. And **ProBot** was born.</p>

## See it in action

<p align="justify">
  Here's a quick walkthrough of building your own bot on ProBot, start to
  finish:
</p>

<Frame>
  <video src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dbjdu0hvl/video/upload/v1782434715/probot/demo_mn8yv1.mp4" title="How to create a bot on ProBot" className="w-full rounded-xl" controls playsInline />
</Frame>

## What ProBot actually is

<p align="justify">
  ProBot turns *anyone's* resume into an AI representative, the same idea as
  VAi, but as a product you can set up in minutes. Paste your career data, pick
  a personality, bring your own LLM key, and share a public link or drop a
  one-line widget onto your own site. Recruiters chat with the real you, on your
  terms.
</p>

A few decisions shaped what ProBot became:

<p align="justify">
  **Building for the community made it open source and free:** VAi was a gift to
  recruiters, ProBot is a gift to everyone job-hunting. There's no paywall and
  no usage meter. You bring your own model key, so you only ever pay your
  provider directly (often pennies, or nothing on free tiers). The entire
  project is MIT-licensed and [open on
  GitHub](https://github.com/vishalpatil18/probot) for anyone to read, fork, and
  audit.
</p>

<p align="justify">
  **Building for non-developers made ProBot a hosting platform:** The people
  asking for a VAi of their own didn't want to manage servers so ProBot hosts
  your bot for you. Sign up, build, share. Nothing to deploy.
</p>

<p align="justify">
  **And for the security-conscious, you can self-host the bot:** If you'd rather
  not trust any operator with your setup, run the tiny `probot-bot` runtime on
  your own domain while the platform handles the heavy lifting, your LLM key
  never leaves your infrastructure.
</p>

## What's coming next

<p align="justify">
  This is just the origin story. In the posts ahead, I'll pull back the curtain
  on **how I actually built ProBot** the architecture, the design decisions and
  trade-offs, the spec-driven development workflow that kept it on the rails,
  and a tour through ProBot's full lifecycle from idea to launch.
</p>

<p align="justify">If that sounds like your kind of deep dive, stick around.</p>

***

*Ready to build your own representative? [Get started free](https://pro-bot.dev/register) or follow along on [GitHub](https://github.com/vishalpatil18/probot).*