WhatsApp Now Available in Chat SDK

Vercel's Chat SDK has extended its multi-platform bot framework to include WhatsApp adapter support, enabling developers to build conversational bots that work seamlessly across six major platforms with a unified codebase.

Key Features

The WhatsApp adapter provides:

• Message support with reactions and read receipts
• Auto-chunking for long messages
• Multi-media downloads including images, voice messages, and stickers
• Location sharing with embedded Google Maps URLs
• Interactive replies with card-based UI elements (up to 3 options per card)

Implementation

Getting started requires minimal setup:

import { Chat } from "chat";
import { createWhatsAppAdapter } from "@chat-adapter/whatsapp";

const bot = new Chat({
  userName: "mybot",
  adapters: {
    whatsapp: createWhatsAppAdapter(),
  },
});

bot.onNewMention(async (thread, message) => {
  await thread.post(`You said: ${message.text}`);
});

Important Limitations

Developers should be aware of WhatsApp-specific constraints:

• 24-hour messaging window: Bots can only respond to messages within 24 hours of receipt
• No message history or editing: Bots cannot retrieve past messages or modify sent ones
• Card limitations: Interactive cards render as reply buttons and fall back to formatted text

Next Steps

Complete documentation and an adapters directory are available at chat-sdk.dev. This addition, including a community contribution from @ghellach, brings the Chat SDK closer to true platform-agnostic bot development.