Handle an incoming message

Note:

Before you can get started, you need to do the following:

Set all Conversation API configuration settings.
Node.js and a familiarity with how to create a new app.
ngrok. You'll use ngrok to open a tunnel to your local server.

Using the Conversation API, you can receive and respond to messages from any channel you have configured. This tutorial shows you how to set up a Node.js application that receives and responds to messages.

Note:

This tutorial is easier to accomplish if you have already completed the steps for sending a message.

Steps:

Set up your Node.js application
Configure your Conversation API webhook
Test the application

Set up your Node.js application

First we'll create a Node project using npm. This creates a package.json and the core dependencies necessary to start coding.

To create the project, do the following steps:

Create a folder called conv-receive
Navigate into the folder you created and run the following command.
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```
npm init
```
This command adds the node_modules folder and the package.json file. You will be prompted to provide values for the fields. For this tutorial, you can simply accept the default values and press enter at each stage.
Add the fetch package with npm to generate the necessary dependencies. In this application, we are going to use Express to handle incoming requests.
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```
npm install cross-fetch
npm install express
```

Create your file

Note:

This tutorial uses basic authentication for testing purposes. We recommend in a production environment you use oauth2 authentication. Read more about authentication methods here.

Create a new file named index.js in the project and paste the provided "index.js" code found on this page into the file.

Note:

This sample code is configured for the US region. If your Conversation API app wasn't created in the US region, replace all instances of https://us.conversation.api.sinch.com with https://eu.conversation.api.sinch.com in the sample code.

This code starts a server that listens for incoming messages. It then sends a text message in response.

Fill in your parameters

Assign your values to the following parameters:

Parameter	Your value
`ACCESS_KEY`	Find your access key on your Sinch dashboard.
`ACCESS_SECRET`	Find your access secret on your Sinch dashboard. Note: Access secrets are only available during initial key creation.

Save the file.

Start your web server and set up a tunnel

Start the server by executing the following command in your terminal or command prompt:
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```
node index.js
```
Now you need to open a tunnel to the server you just set up. We are using ngrok for this.
Note
If you don't have ngrok installed already you can install it with the following command:
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npm install ngrok -g
Open a new terminal or command prompt and enter:
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```
ngrok http 3000
```
Copy the HTTP address that ends with .ngrok.io.

Configure your webhook

For your application to receive messages from Conversation API, you must configure a webhook in your Conversation API app. For detailed instructions on configuring a webhook, click here.

Set your webhook URL to the HTTP address you copied in the previous step. Additionally, assign the following triggers:

CONVERSATION_START
CONVERSATION_STOP
EVENT_DELIVERY
EVENT_INBOUND
MESSAGE_DELIVERY
MESSAGE_INBOUND
UNSUPPORTED

Test the application

Now that your server is running and your webhook is configured, you can test the application.

From your messaging platform, send your Conversation API app a message. You will receive a message back in response on the messaging platform.

Additional resources

Read the links below to learn more: