We're about to get into more advanced Bento features like flows, events, behavior-based automations, and more.
Before we dive in, I want to make sure you know about Tanuki.
What Is Tanuki?
Tanuki is Bento's built-in AI assistant.
It's trained on all of Bento's documentation, it's free for every Bento user, and there's no usage limit.
Think of it as a 24/7 Bento support agent that actually knows what it's talking about.
Where To Find It
Tanuki shows up in four places inside the Bento app:
1 - Cmd+K (or Ctrl+K on Windows)
This is the fastest way. Hit Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) from anywhere in Bento to open the site-wide search.
Type a question and Tanuki opens in a sidebar to answer it.
This works from any screen - you don't have to navigate somewhere first.
2 - The in-app chat on your dashboard
You'll also see a Tanuki chat box on your Bento dashboard. Same sidebar, just accessed from the dashboard instead of the keyboard shortcut.
3 - The email editor
When you're editing an email (in any of the three editors: Stripo, Shoji, or Raw HTML), look for the "AI Mode" toggle with the Tanuki icon in the editor header.
Toggle it on and you get a split-screen: your email preview on one side, Tanuki chat on the other.
Click any element in the preview, then ask Tanuki to modify it - change colors, swap images, rewrite copy, add Liquid tags.
4 - The workflow builder
When you're building a flow, click "Plan with Tanuki AI" at the bottom of the canvas.
Describe what you want in plain English and Tanuki scaffolds the entire flow - triggers, delays, conditions, email nodes.
We'll use this more in the upcoming flow lessons.
What To Ask It
A few examples to get you started:
- "How do I set up a segment for subscribers who haven't opened an email in 30 days?" - It'll walk you through the steps.
- "Create an onboarding flow for new signups with a welcome email and two follow-ups." - It'll build the whole flow for you.
- "Rewrite this subject line to be more compelling." - In the email editor, it'll suggest alternatives.
- "What's the difference between tags and custom fields? When should I use one vs. the other?" - It'll explain the concept clearly.
If you get stuck on anything in this training, try asking Tanuki first.
It can often answer faster than searching the docs.
Why I'm Telling You This Now
In the upcoming lessons, you'll be setting up MCP connections, building flows, working with events, and writing Liquid templates.
Some of this is technical.
If you hit a wall, Tanuki is often the fastest path to getting unstuck - right inside the Bento app, no context-switching required.
Check out the Tanuki AI page for the full feature breakdown.
When To Move On
- You know where to find Tanuki in the Bento app (Cmd+K, dashboard chat, email editor, workflow builder)
- You've tried asking it at least one question
- You know it's there as a resource for the rest of this training
Video transcript
So I wanted to really quickly point you to Bento's built-in AI named Tanuki, which it feels almost not worth telling you all the different specific places you can find it, because it's very subject to change. I mostly want to call your attention to the fact that it exists. So within Bento, Jesse has built a little AI interface named Tanuki that is trained on all of the Bento documentation, on all of your emails and flows, and stuff like that. It can help you answer questions, write Liquid code, flesh out flow scaffolding, build broadcast maybe.
I've never tried. But it's basically just your Bento-specific AI assistant, so be sure to make use of it as you go, especially if something feels a little bit confusing. The three places at the time of recording to find it, number one, the one I probably use the most, is on Mac, Command+K, or on Windows, Control+K. This pops up the app-wide search where you can-- I often use this to find the Liquid tester because I don't even know where the Liquid tester is in the UI.
But you can also just ask Tanuki whatever you want in here. So that's a really good go-to place you can access everywhere. Another place I use a lot is just you click Home, and then on your dashboard, it's got this little chat box right here. And then importantly, which will come up more later, when you're working on a flow, especially when you're new to the concept of flows, which we'll be talking about soon in this section, you can actually have Tanuki build a flow for you right here.
So you can just describe, "I want an abandoned cart sequence with 10 emails that do wah, wah, wah, wah," and it can build that out for you, so really nifty stuff. And then looks like there's a fourth one, which I forgot to mention, which is the email editor. So whenever you are using any of the email editors, or maybe not Raw HTML, I've never tried it with that one. But basically, you can pull up the AI mode and have Tanuki help you with the email.
I think one really good use case for it is just asking it questions of things you don't understand how to do. I tested this one out the other day, the difference between tags and fields, because I know it's so easy to forget, and its answer was pretty good. So it can help you with anything that's a personalized Bento documentation reader for you without you having to have your own LLM go crawl around and stuff. So keep that in mind.
If you get confused on anything, stuck on anything you don't really understand the training or can't perfectly follow it, Tanuki would be a great first step. And then if Tanuki can't get you on stuff, of course, reach out to Jesse. He's really responsive at Discord, but Tanuki might be able to explain things that feel a little confusing. So let's keep it going.