Botium Connector for Whatsapp Webhooks
This is a Botium connector for testing your Whatsapp Business API Webhooks.
Did you read the Botium in a Nutshell articles ? Be warned, without prior knowledge of Botium you won't be able to properly use this library!
How it works ?
Botium emulates the Whatsapp Business API
- It sends inbound messages to your webhook
- It listens for outbound messages from your webhook
Redis is used to connect the webhook to Botium scripts: all messages received over the webhook are published to Redis, and Botium on the other end subscribes to those Redis channels before running a conversation.
It can be used as any other Botium connector with all Botium Stack components:
Requirements
- Node.js and NPM
- a Whatsapp Business API Webhook
- a Redis instance (Cloud hosted free tier for example from redislabs will do as a starter)
- a project directory on your workstation to hold test cases and Botium configuration
Install Botium and Whatsapp Connector
When using Botium CLI:
> npm install -g botium-cli
> npm install -g botium-connector-whatsapp
> cd <your working dir>
> botium-cli init
> botium-cli run
When using Botium Bindings:
> npm install -g botium-bindings
> npm install -g botium-connector-whatsapp
> botium-bindings init mocha
> npm install && npm run mocha
When using Botium Box:
Already integrated into Botium Box, no setup required
Connecting your Whatsapp Webhook to Botium
Open the file botium.json in your working directory and add the webhook url and Redis connection settings.
{
"botium": {
"Capabilities": {
"PROJECTNAME": "<whatever>",
"CONTAINERMODE": "whatsapp",
"WHATSAPP_WEBHOOKURL": "...",
"SIMPLEREST_INBOUND_REDISURL": "redis://127.0.0.1:6379"
}
}
}
Botium setup is ready, you can begin to write your BotiumScript files.
Important: The inbound-proxy
command has to be started with Botium CLI. Otherwise, Botium scripts will fail to receive any input or output messages from your chatbot!
Running the Samples
Install botium-core as peerDependency
> npm install --no-save botium-core
Afterwards in the folder samples/whatsapp-echo-bot is an example for a simple Whatsapp Webhook chatbot - it is connected to a I Am Botium chatbot endpoint doing some simple smalltalk. Start the webhook:
> cd samples/whatsapp-echo-bot && npm install && npm start
Finally, navigate into the samples/simple and run npm install
, start the inbound proxy server
and run the test itself with the following commands:
> cd samples/simple
> npm install
> npm run inbound
> npm test
Supported Capabilities
Set the capability CONTAINERMODE to whatsapp to activate this connector.
WHATSAPP_WEBHOOKURL
The URL of your Whatsapp Business API webhook.
WHATSAPP_RECIPIENTID
The Whatsapp Id of the user.
Optional. By default, a unique id is generated.
Open Issues and Restrictions
- Currently only plain text messages are supported
- Currently only individual receivers supported