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Auto-retrain

How and when Costello retrains after you update the knowledge base, and what to do if you want to force a retrain.

Auto-retrain

Every time you make a change to the knowledge base — uploading a file, saving a FAQ pair, running a website crawl, or updating opening hours — Costello automatically queues a retrain. Once the retrain completes, the AI uses the updated knowledge in all future conversations.

How long does retraining take?

For most knowledge bases, retraining completes in 2–5 minutes. Larger knowledge bases (many files, extensive crawls) may take up to 10 minutes.

While retraining is in progress, you'll see a "Training…" badge in the Knowledge Base section of the dashboard. Costello continues answering messages during the retrain using the previous knowledge — it doesn't go offline.

Once the badge disappears, the update is live.

What triggers a retrain

A retrain is queued automatically when you:

  • Upload or replace a file
  • Delete a file
  • Add, edit, or delete a FAQ pair
  • Run or re-run a website crawl
  • Update opening hours or service entries

If you make several changes in quick succession, they're batched into a single retrain rather than triggering one per change.

Forcing a manual retrain

In most cases you don't need to manually trigger a retrain — it happens automatically. If you want to force one (for example, after making several changes and wanting to verify the result):

  1. Open Knowledge Base.
  2. Click Retrain now in the top-right corner.

This queues an immediate retrain and shows the "Training…" badge.

When changes don't seem to take effect

If a change you made isn't reflected in Costello's replies, check:

  1. The "Training…" badge has cleared. If it's still showing, the retrain is still in progress. Wait a few more minutes.
  2. The change was actually saved. Open the knowledge base source you edited and confirm the new content is showing.
  3. Test with a fresh conversation. Existing conversations may reflect the previous knowledge if they were started before the retrain completed. Start a new test conversation to see the updated behaviour.

If the issue persists after a completed retrain, submit a support case →.

Next steps

Still stuck? Submit a case →

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