Send Messages

Practical recipes for responding to text messages.

Setup

import { Bot } from '@botmesh/core'
import { BaileysProvider } from '@botmesh/baileys'

const bot = new Bot({
  provider: new BaileysProvider({ session: 'demo-bot', qr: { terminal: true, small: true } }),
})

Respond to text

bot.when('hi', async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply('👋 Hello!')
})

Multiple keywords

bot.when(['bye', 'goodbye', 'see you'], async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply('👋 See you later!')
})

Regex match

bot.when(/\d{4,}/, async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply(`🔢 Detected a long number: "${ctx.body}"`)
})

bot.when(/[\w.]+@[\w.]+\.\w+/, async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply('📧 Detected an email')
})

Match "contains" instead of exact

By default a string trigger only matches when the (normalized) message equals it — bot.when('invoice', ...) does NOT match "check my invoice please". Use a TriggerObject with match: 'contains' for the old "contains" behavior:

bot.when({ pattern: 'invoice', match: 'contains' }, async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply('🧾 I see you mentioned an invoice')
})

match also supports 'startsWith' and 'endsWith'.

Quote the message

bot.when('quote', async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.quote('Replying to your specific message')
})

React with emoji

bot.when('good', async (ctx) => { await ctx.react('👍') })
bot.when('love', async (ctx) => { await ctx.react('❤️') })

Private only

bot.when('private', async (ctx) => {
  if (ctx.isGroup) return
  await ctx.reply('This only works in private chat')
})

Multi-line message

bot.when('info', async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply([
    'ℹ️ *Bot info*',
    '',
    '• Version: 2.0.0',
    '• Engine: Baileys 7',
  ].join('\n'))
})

Use sender info

bot.when('who', async (ctx) => {
  const name = ctx.senderInfo.displayName ?? 'friend'
  await ctx.reply(`👋 Hi ${name}!`)
})

No native buttons — use a poll

WhatsApp Web killed native buttons, so on Baileys a quick yes/no is best done with a real poll (see Send media for more poll options). On the official Cloud API (@botmesh/meta) it's the other way round: native buttons work and polls don't, so use ctx.buttons() there.

bot.when('confirm', async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.poll('Do you confirm your order?', ['Yes', 'No'])
})

For a menu that branches into different logic per option, use flow().choose() or c.choose() instead — see the Shopping flow recipe.

Catch-all

bot.onMessage(async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply('🤔 I did not recognize that. Send /help.')
})

Start the bot

await bot.start()

Next steps

• Send media — photos, stickers, audio
• Registration flow — multi-step conversation