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Update Help Scout Docs articles after a product change

Your product changed a menu name on Tuesday, and three Docs articles still tell customers to click the old one, because nobody searched Docs for it.

Cotlet does it in your own Help Scout account with search_docs_articles, get_docs_article, save_docs_article_draft and publish_docs_article, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

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Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

Can Help Scout do this on its own?

Help Scout's Docs API has Save Article Draft and Update Article, and the official MCP can read Docs articles with a Docs API key, but the MCP is read-only for new connections, so an agent cannot edit Docs through it (checked 16 Oct 2026). Using the Docs API yourself needs an API key for the Docs site. Nothing in Help Scout finds the articles an announcement affects.

How you do it in Help Scout today

  1. Search for the old menu name: each search returns conversations, customers and Docs articles, and a click on the Docs header lists the articles that mention it.
  2. Open Tools > Docs, choose the collection and open the article in the Docs editor. The editor saves your changes as a draft automatically and shows a green check mark with the word Saved.
  3. Edit the text, use Preview to see it as it will look on your Docs site, and click Update on a published article to put it live. A new article uses Publish.
  4. The drop-down next to Update holds Unpublish, which removes the article from the site without deleting it, and Discard changes, which has no restore.
  5. Every article that mentions the change needs its own edit, so the slow part is finding them all.

How to update Help Scout Docs articles after a product change

Prompt

Read this week's release notes below. Find every Help Scout Docs article that mentions the changed screens, save the corrected text as a draft of each, and show me the differences. Publish nothing until I say so.
  1. 01

    Find every affected article

    search_docs_articles searches for each old term from the changelog, such as a renamed menu or a removed button, and merges the hits into one list with the collection each article sits in.

  2. 02

    Read the current text

    get_docs_article returns the article as published, and the draft too if one is open. If a draft with someone else's edits exists, the agent flags it instead of overwriting it.

  3. 03

    Write corrected drafts

    save_docs_article_draft changes only the sentences that mention the change and leaves the structure and images alone. A draft does not touch the published article, so it is safe to run unattended.

  4. 04

    Show the differences

    The agent reports each article with the old and new sentence side by side, so you review wording in one message instead of opening every article.

  5. 05

    Publish only on your word

    publish_docs_article puts a draft live on your public Docs site and asks for your OK per article by default. The agent publishes the ones you approve and leaves the rest as drafts.

What you get back

Example data

Release notes: "Reports" is now called "Insights"
Articles mentioning "Reports": 4
Draft saved for 3:
- "Export conversation data": 2 sentences changed
- "Read your email report": 1 sentence changed
- "Set up a daily digest": 1 sentence changed
Left alone 1: "Reports API overview" has an open draft by Maria
Published: 0 (waiting for your OK)

Other ways to ask

  • Every Monday, check the last 7 days of release notes and save drafts only, with a list of what changed.
  • Find Docs articles that have not been edited for a year and list them with the screens they describe.
  • Unpublish the article "Old pricing FAQ" and tell me which other articles link to it.

What Help Scout allows, and what to know first

  • Help Scout Docs has two article statuses, published and notpublished, and a draft is a separate version shown by a hasDraft flag, so a saved draft never changes the live article.
  • Publishing an article that has a draft deletes the draft, and Discard changes in the editor has no restore.
  • By default every Help Scout user can edit, publish and delete Docs articles; Account Owners and Administrators can restrict that in the permission settings.
  • An article name must be unique within its collection.
  • The Free plan includes one Docs site with 10 articles; paid plans include 2, 3 or 5 Docs sites, and extra sites cost $20 a month on annual billing or $24 monthly.

publish_docs_article asks for your OK by default. To run it weekly without you, switch confirmation off for that tool in your dashboard.

Sources: Help Scout Docs: Create and manage Docs articles · Help Scout Docs: About the Docs editor · Help Scout Docs API: Update Article · Help Scout Docs API: Save Article Draft · Help Scout pricing

Call save_docs_article_draft from a script

curl

curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/help-scout/articles/6628f1a2b5d30/docs-article-draft/save \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"<p>Open <strong>Insights</strong> from the top menu, choose a date range and click <strong>Export</strong>.</p>"}'

Example response

{
  "article_id": "6628f1a2b5d30",
  "has_draft": true,
  "status": "published"
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is help_scout_write → save_docs_article_draft. Example data.

Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron

Help Scout tools this automation uses

Cotlet Help Scout tools used to update Help Scout Docs articles after a product change
Tool Parameters
search_docs_articles query, status, limit
get_docs_article article_id, draft
save_docs_article_draft article_id, text
publish_docs_article article_id, action
All 14 Help Scout tools with descriptions

Frequently asked questions

Is it safe to connect Help Scout to Cotlet?

Yes. You sign in to Help Scout yourself, in your own Cloud Browser in the EU, and we never save your password. Your agents only get Help Scout once you enable it, every background request is listed, and the browser profile is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the cipher 1Password uses for its vaults. The AI model never sees a login, posts and messages wait for your OK, and Disable for agents cuts access in one click. Independent scanners grade cotlet.dev A+ on Qualys SSL Labs, securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory; live results are on https://cotlet.dev/security.

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