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API channel for custom integrations

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Conversa Labs

Conversa Labs

Last updated on Jun 27, 2026

Overview

The API channel is a generic channel for custom integrations. Instead of a ready-made channel (WhatsApp, email, website), you connect your own system or a non-native channel: your application sends messages to the platform and receives replies via API and webhooks.

It's the ideal foundation to integrate tailor-made channels, bots and external systems, keeping conversations centralized with history, assignment and automations like any other channel.

Prerequisites

  • An administrator profile to create the API inbox.
  • Technical knowledge to consume an HTTP API and handle webhooks in your system.
  • A public endpoint on your side to receive webhook events (messages from the platform).
  • Your account's API access credentials (see the API & Developers category).

Step by step

  1. Under Settings → Inboxes, create a new inbox and choose API.
  2. Enter the channel name and, if applicable, your system's webhook URL.
  3. Finish creating it — the inbox now has its own identifier.
  4. In your system, use the API to create/identify the contact and send messages to the inbox.
  5. Configure the webhook to receive the platform's replies and events in your system.
  6. Send a test message through the API and confirm it appears as a conversation.

Settings & options

  • Inbox identifier: used in API calls to route messages to the right inbox.
  • Webhook URL: your system's endpoint that receives messages and events from the platform.
  • Contacts and conversations: created/updated via API, with the same features as other channels.
  • Automation and assignment: apply rules just like on any other channel.

Use cases

  • Connect a proprietary channel or a legacy system with no native integration.
  • Build a custom bot that talks to contacts through the platform.
  • Integrate an internal app to log and reply to conversations automatically.

Tips, limits & best practices

  • Handle the webhook idempotently to avoid duplicate conversations or messages.
  • Protect your API credentials: keep them on the server, never exposed on the client.
  • Implement retries on sending to cope with temporary network failures.

Troubleshooting

  • Messages don't come in: check the inbox identifier and the credentials used in the API.
  • I don't receive events in my system: validate the webhook URL and that your endpoint responds successfully.
  • Duplicate conversations: ensure idempotent webhook handling on your side.

See also