Help categoriesOverview

Help categories

Categories group related articles inside a collection. Use the API to list, retrieve, create, update, and delete them.

A category is the middle level of your Help Center. It belongs to exactly one collection and groups related articles — for example an "Account" category inside a "Getting Started" collection.

Categories are optional. An article can be filed directly in a collection when it doesn't need sub-grouping.

Every Help Center endpoint requires the knowledgebase feature on your plan — reads included, not just writes. Calls from an organization without it return 403.

The help category object

idstring
Required

A unique identifier for the category (UUID).

collection_idstring
Required

UUID of the parent collection. Every category has exactly one.

namestring
Required

The display name shown inside the collection.

slugstring
Required

URL-safe identifier, unique within your organization. Forms the middle segment of an article's public URL: /help/{collection_slug}/{category_slug}/{article_slug}

descriptionstring

Optional supporting text shown beneath the category name. May be null.

iconstring

Optional icon identifier rendered next to the category. May be null.

colorstring

Optional hex color string (e.g. "#4E938A") used as an accent. May be null.

seq_numberstring

The category's position within its collection, as a decimal string. Read-only — reorder by drag-and-drop in the dashboard.

article_countinteger
Required

How many active articles this category contains.

created_atstring
Required

ISO 8601 timestamp at which the category was created.

updated_atstring
Required

ISO 8601 timestamp of the most recent change.

Example help category object

{
  "id": "884c3ef8-b8cd-cd15-01ba-44bb44bb44bb",
  "collection_id": "553c3ef8-b8cd-cd15-01ba-12bb12bb12bb",
  "name": "Account",
  "slug": "account",
  "description": "Profile, password, and two-factor authentication.",
  "icon": "user",
  "color": "#4E938A",
  "seq_number": "1000.0000",
  "article_count": 7,
  "created_at": "2026-08-01T10:14:00",
  "updated_at": "2026-08-01T10:14:00"
}

Moving a category between collections

Pass a new collection_id to Update. The category's articles move with it — nothing is denormalized, so their breadcrumbs and public URLs follow the new parent automatically.

Ordering is scoped to the collection, so a moved category takes a position within its new parent.

Slugs

Slugs are unique per organization, not per collection. Omit slug on create and one is derived from name, with a unique suffix appended if it collides. On update, an explicit slug already in use is rejected with 400.

Deleting

Deletes are soft and cascade: deleting a category also soft-deletes every article inside it. The slug is freed for reuse.

What you can do