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

# Show and hide features

> Every switch that shows, hides, or withholds a feature in an embedded Cube surface — account settings, session settings, and iframe URL parameters — with the rule for which one to use.

Embedded surfaces can be trimmed down to the feature set you want each of your
users to see: hide the AI chat, drop a duplicate back button, take sharing away
from a single-tenant deployment, allow chart downloads.

Those switches live in three configuration layers, and which layer a switch
belongs to is not arbitrary — it follows from **what the switch answers**:

| Layer                                 | Set where                                                                 | Applies to                                             | Can the viewer change it?                                                                                    |
| ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| [Account settings](#account-settings) | **Embed → Settings** in the Cube console                                  | Every embed in the account                             | No for the switches. **Language** / **Time Zone** yield to a URL parameter                                   |
| [Session settings](#session-settings) | The `settings` object of the [Generate Session API][ref-generate-session] | Every embed opened with that session — i.e. one viewer | No for the switches — they are signed into the session token. `locale` / `timezone` yield to a URL parameter |
| [URL parameters](#url-parameters)     | The query string of the iframe `src`                                      | That one iframe                                        | Yes — it is a URL in their browser                                                                           |

A fourth channel, [host messages](/embedding/iframe/events), changes a few of
the same values at runtime (language, time zone, theme) after the iframe has
already loaded.

<h2 id="which-layer">
  Which layer to use
</h2>

<Note>
  **The rule.** A session setting answers *what is this customer entitled to*. A
  URL parameter answers *what should this particular placement look like*. An
  account setting is the default behind both.
</Note>

That is why the layers are not interchangeable, and why a given switch usually
exists in exactly one of them:

* **Session settings are per-viewer, and the switches are tamper-proof.** Your
  backend decides them when it mints the session, and they are signed into the
  session token, so a viewer cannot switch on something you withheld. (The two
  value settings, `locale` and `timezone`, are deliberately softer: a URL
  parameter overrides them, because neither grants anything.) Everything that
  differs *per customer* — whether sharing exists, whether the AI agent may
  write to the workspace, whether raw member names may be revealed — is a
  session setting. Some of them are enforced on the server, not merely hidden in
  the UI (see [What hiding does and does not do](#what-hiding-does-and-does-not-do)).
* **URL parameters are per-placement and cheap.** The same session can be
  rendered in two places in your product that need different chrome — a full
  page with its own header, and a compact card in a sidebar. Changing a query
  string needs no new session, but the viewer can also edit it, so nothing that
  must hold against a determined viewer is expressed this way.
* **Account settings are the default.** Use them when the answer is the same for
  every customer you embed for.

Two consequences worth internalising:

* **Private embedding has no session layer.** A [private embed](/embedding/iframe/auth/private)
  carries no session token, so session settings do not exist there; only account
  settings and URL parameters apply, and the viewer's own Cube permissions decide
  the rest.
* **Outside an embed, none of this applies.** On the Cube console itself every
  control is governed by the user's role, not by these switches.

## Session settings

Pass `settings` to the [Generate Session API][ref-generate-session]. Every key
inherits the layer below it when you omit it — the account setting where one
exists, otherwise the built-in default. The switches are **tri-state**: `true` /
`false` pins the behavior for every embed opened with that session. Two keys
(`locale`, `timezone`) carry a value instead, and an unusable one falls through
to the layer below rather than failing the session.

```javascript theme={"dark"}
body: JSON.stringify({
  deploymentId: DEPLOYMENT_ID,
  externalId: "user@example.com",
  settings: {
    allowAi: false,
    showWorkbookShare: false,
  },
}),
```

### AI

All but the last inherit an account-wide default from **Embed → Settings**, so a
session value there is an override of what the account already says;
`allowChatWorkspaceAuthoring` has no account-wide counterpart.

| Setting                       | Governs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         | Default                       |
| ----------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- |
| `allowAi`                     | **Master switch** over every AI surface in the embed. Enforced on the server: a session with `allowAi: false` cannot obtain AI Chat credentials at all, so it cannot spend AI tokens. Outranks every key below — `false` here disables a surface whose own key is `true`.                                                                                                                                                                                       | Account setting, then allowed |
| `showDashboardChat`           | The AI chat on embedded published dashboards — agent panel and launcher bubble.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 | Account setting, then shown   |
| `showWorkbookChat`            | The [Creator Mode](/embedding/iframe/creator-mode) workbook's AI entry points: the chat side panel and its toggle, the launchpad's **Ask Cube Agent** button, and **Fix in chat** on a failed report.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           | Account setting, then shown   |
| `showAiWidgets`               | Authoring and refreshing AI summary widgets: the **AI widget** entry in the dashboard editor's Add widgets menu, and a widget's prompt input plus Generate/Regenerate. An already-generated summary keeps rendering, so switching this off never blanks a published dashboard — it only stops it being regenerated.                                                                                                                                             | Account setting, then enabled |
| `allowChatWorkspaceAuthoring` | Whether AI Chat authenticated with this session may create or modify persistent workspace content. `false` keeps ad-hoc analysis and inline tables/charts, but the agent cannot save or update explorations and reports, create or modify workbooks, create or publish dashboards, or point users at those surfaces — for headless chat integrations that render answers in their own UI. `true` never grants authoring the user's role does not already allow. | Allowed                       |

### Language and time zone

These two carry a value rather than a switch, and they are the answer for a
viewer rather than for a placement: set them once when you mint the session and
every iframe that session opens uses them. A runtime [host
message](/embedding/iframe/events) and the per-iframe `?locale=` / `?timezone=`
parameters both still win where a host sends one, and the account-wide default
applies where none does. Neither setting grants anything, which is why a
viewer-editable URL parameter is allowed to override them.

| Setting    | Governs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `locale`   | The embed's UI language, as a BCP-47 code. A full code (`es-ES`), a short code (`es`), and an unshipped regional variant all resolve to a shipped language; one Cube does not ship falls through to the account default rather than failing the session. See [Localization](/embedding/iframe/localization).                                                                                               |
| `timezone` | The IANA zone the agent runs its queries in (`America/New_York`). It outranks a zone the dashboard's author pinned, so every dashboard this session opens is bucketed in it — set it when the viewer's zone should win, not to nudge a default. Still subject to the account's user-time-zone policy, and a bare UTC offset or unknown name falls through. See [Time zones](/embedding/iframe/time-zones). |

### Creator Mode controls

These have no account-wide counterpart: what they answer is a per-customer
question, so the session is the only place to answer it. All default to shown.

| Setting                 | Governs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `showWorkbookShare`     | Sharing in the Creator Mode workspace: the workbook header's **Share** button and the **Share** action on a workbook, dashboard, exploration, or folder row. Set `false` for a deployment where each embed user should only ever see their own content. Hides the entry points — it does not revoke access already granted.       |
| `showDashboardSettings` | The dashboard editor's settings panel — the gear button and the sidebar behind it. That panel is the only place an embed user can reach the dashboard slug, the per-dashboard time zone, the per-dashboard agent, the grid behavior switches, and the dashboard theme, so `false` withdraws all of them together.                 |
| `showMemberNames`       | The **Show Member Names** item in the data pane's more-actions menu. Member names are your data model's own identifiers, so this belongs to the same schema-protection family as **Show Generated SQL**. `false` hides the item **and** pins the pane to titles, so a user who had already switched to names is returned to them. |
| `showGroupByCube`       | The **Group by Cube** / **Group by Folder** item in the data pane's more-actions menu. `false` hides the item **and** pins the pane to the grouping it would have defaulted to — by folder when the view defines folders, by cube otherwise. No content is withdrawn either way.                                                  |

<Note>
  The [Chat API](/reference/embed-apis/chat-api)'s own session exchange accepts
  `allowChatWorkspaceAuthoring` as a **top-level** field of the request body rather
  than inside a `settings` object. It means exactly the same thing.
</Note>

## URL parameters

Add these to the iframe `src`. They are read from the URL the host loaded the
embed with and stay pinned for the life of the embed, so they survive in-app
navigation — opening a dashboard from the home page, or publishing a draft — and
they are ignored outside `/embed/*`.

| Parameter                            | Effect                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               | Surface      |
| ------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------ |
| `allowExport=true`                   | Offers per-widget **Download as CSV / PNG / PDF** on chart widgets. The single switch for all three formats.                                                                                                                                                         | Dashboards   |
| `showDashboardExportMenu=false`      | Hides the whole-dashboard download menu (in the Creator Mode dashboard header; floating over a published-dashboard embed). A hide switch, not the grant — `allowExport=true` is still what hands out export at all.                                                  | Dashboards   |
| `showDashboardHeader=false`          | Hides the entire dashboard header bar.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               | Dashboards   |
| `showDashboardBackButton=false`      | Hides the dashboard header's back button.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            | Dashboards   |
| `showDashboardTitle=false`           | Hides the dashboard title.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           | Dashboards   |
| `showDashboardEditButton=false`      | Hides the **Edit** action. Can only hide it — it never shows one to a viewer without edit permission.                                                                                                                                                                | Dashboards   |
| `showDashboardDuplicateButton=false` | Hides the **Duplicate** action.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      | Dashboards   |
| `showWorkbookBackButton=false`       | Hides the back button in the Creator Mode **workbook** header. The rest of that header is the authoring flow (name, tabs, Publish, Share), so there is no master switch for it. The workbook actions menu keeps its **View all** item, which reaches the same place. | Creator Mode |
| `locale=es-MX`                       | Sets the embed's UI language, overriding `settings.locale`. See [Localization](/embedding/iframe/localization).                                                                                                                                                      | All          |
| `timezone=America/New_York`          | Sets the time zone agent queries run in, overriding `settings.timezone`. See [Time zones](/embedding/iframe/time-zones).                                                                                                                                             | All          |

The dashboard header switches exist because a host that already frames the embed
in its own chrome otherwise ends up with two of everything — most visibly two
back buttons that navigate to different places. Each control is its own switch
because which of them duplicate yours is your decision; `showDashboardHeader=false`
is the shortcut for all of them, and hiding the last remaining control collapses
the bar for you.

<h3 id="parsing">
  How values are parsed
</h3>

Every parameter falls back to whatever the embed would have done without it, so a
typo never buys something you did not ask for. Which direction that is depends on
what the parameter does:

* **A parameter that grants** (`allowExport`) requires the exact literal string
  `true`. `allowExport=1`, `allowExport=TRUE`, and a bare `?allowExport` all
  leave downloads hidden.
* **A parameter that hides** (every `show…`) requires the exact literal string
  `false`. `=0`, `=False`, `=FALSE`, and a bare `?showDashboardTitle` all leave
  the control visible.
* **A parameter that selects a value** (`locale`, `timezone`) falls through to
  the next source in the ladder when the value is one Cube cannot use — the
  session setting first, then (for `timezone`) a zone the dashboard's author
  pinned, then the account default.

Note that the two boolean conventions are inverses of each other: `allowExport`
must be turned *on*, `show…` must be turned *off*.

## Account settings

**Embed → Settings** in the Cube console holds the account-wide defaults. They
apply to every embed, including [private embeds](/embedding/iframe/auth/private),
and the AI ones are what a session's own AI keys override.

| Setting                                    | Governs                                                                                                                     | Default           |
| ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- |
| **Allow AI features in embeds**            | `allowAi` for the whole account.                                                                                            | On                |
| **Show AI chat on embedded dashboards**    | `showDashboardChat`.                                                                                                        | On                |
| **Show AI chat in the embedded workspace** | `showWorkbookChat`.                                                                                                         | On                |
| **Allow AI summary widgets in embeds**     | `showAiWidgets`.                                                                                                            | On                |
| **Allow comments on embedded dashboards**  | Commenting on embedded published dashboards. Separate from commenting in the Cube app, which has its own setting.           | Off               |
| **Language**                               | Default UI language for embedded surfaces, below a host message, `?locale=`, and `settings.locale`.                         | English           |
| **Time Zone**                              | Time zone agent queries run in, below a host message, `?timezone=`, `settings.timezone`, and a dashboard's own pinned zone. | Account-wide zone |

The same page carries the account-wide [Creator
Mode](/embedding/iframe/creator-mode) settings: the workspace header title (with
per-language overrides) and whether that header is shown at all, plus whether
embed users may see **Semantic SQL** (shown by default) and **Generated SQL**
(hidden by default, because it exposes physical table and schema names).

## Analytics Chat parameters

The standalone [Analytics Chat](/embedding/iframe/analytics-chat) embed has three
URL parameters of its own.

| Parameter               | Effect                                               |
| ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| `showNewChat=false`     | Hides the **New chat** button.                       |
| `showChatInput=false`   | Hides the message input, for a read-only transcript. |
| `showChatHistory=false` | Hides the **Chat History** button.                   |

They follow the same rule as every other `show…` parameter: only the literal
`false` hides. Each also has an older `hide…` spelling that still works — see
[Analytics Chat → Customize the chat](/embedding/iframe/analytics-chat#customize-the-chat).

Whether the chat surface is available at all is a session question, not a URL
one: `settings.allowAi: false` withholds it.

<h2 id="what-hiding-does-and-does-not-do">
  What hiding does and does not do
</h2>

Most of these switches take an **entry point** out of the UI. They are how you
shape the product your users see; they are not a replacement for permissions.

* **Permissions still apply underneath.** None of these switches widens what a
  session may do. `showDashboardEditButton` cannot give edit rights;
  `showWorkbookShare: true` cannot share content the user may not share;
  `allowChatWorkspaceAuthoring: true` grants nothing the user's role withholds.
* **Two of them are enforced on the server, not merely hidden.** `allowAi: false`
  stops the session obtaining AI credentials at all. `allowChatWorkspaceAuthoring:
  false` changes the tools and instructions the agent is given.
* **Two more reset state as well as hiding a control**, in the browser rather
  than on the server: `showMemberNames: false` and `showGroupByCube: false` pin
  the data pane so a user who had already switched cannot stay switched. That
  keeps the pane consistent for every viewer of the session; it is not a
  server-side guarantee about what the data model reveals.
* **URL parameters are visible to the viewer.** They are chrome and layout
  decisions, made per placement. Anything a viewer must not be able to turn back
  on belongs in the session settings.
* **Export is client-side.** A widget's CSV is serialized in the browser from
  data the widget has already loaded, so `allowExport` decides whether the action
  is offered, not whether the viewer's browser holds the rows. The account-wide
  **Allow data downloads** switch outranks it — see [Restricting data
  downloads](/admin/users-and-permissions/roles-and-permissions#restricting-data-downloads),
  which also notes that the per-user **Download data** role action is bypassed by
  anonymous embed viewers.

## Recipes

**A dashboard inside your own chrome.** Your page already has a header and a back
link:

```text theme={"dark"}
https://your-tenant.cubecloud.dev/embed/dashboard/PUBLIC_ID?session=SESSION_ID&showDashboardHeader=false
```

**A customer whose plan has no AI.** Decide it on your backend, so it holds
wherever the embed is rendered:

```javascript theme={"dark"}
settings: { allowAi: false }
```

**A single-tenant deployment with no sharing UI**, and a data pane pinned to
titles rather than the model's raw identifiers:

```javascript theme={"dark"}
settings: { showWorkbookShare: false, showMemberNames: false }
```

**A chat integration that renders answers in your own UI**, with no Cube
workspace behind it:

```javascript theme={"dark"}
settings: { allowChatWorkspaceAuthoring: false }
```

**Downloads for one placement only.** Grant export on the iframe that should
have it, and leave it off the others:

```text theme={"dark"}
https://your-tenant.cubecloud.dev/embed/dashboard/PUBLIC_ID?session=SESSION_ID&allowExport=true
```

[ref-generate-session]: /reference/embed-apis/generate-session#session-settings