# Inbox > The operator inbox over five channels — its one route, the identity rule the whole module rests on, and the platform limits that arrive after a send. Page: https://sdk.chatfuel.com/docs/modules/inbox Markdown: https://sdk.chatfuel.com/docs/modules/inbox.md ## What it is [#what-it-is] There is no plain close in this API. An operator finishes a conversation by handing the contact back to a bot flow, and that hand-over *is* the close — which is why the module is arranged around two writes, take-over and hand-over, rather than around a status field. Between them sits the operator's side of the bot: a chat list, a message thread and a composer, live over one WebSocket, at `/livechat`. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and the web widget arrive in the same list, and a conversation reads `Automated` for exactly as long as the bot has it, `Open` once somebody takes it. ## Installed as [#installed-as] | | | | ----------- | ----------------------------------------- | | Wizard id | `livechat` | | Install it | `npx @chatfuel/wizard --modules livechat` | | Selected by | Default — `--yes` installs it | | Requires | Nothing, beyond the implicit `core` | | Recommends | `contacts` | ## Routes and views [#routes-and-views] One path, and no view segment: the list, the thread and the contact card are three panes of one screen, not three views. | Path | What it shows | | ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | | `/livechat` | The chat list, the open thread, and the contact panel beside it. | | Parameter | What it does | | --------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `c` | The open conversation. Written back as you move, so the address stays a shareable link — and it opens a thread even when the conversation is not in the list. | | `contact` | Start, or find, a conversation with this contact and open it. Consumed once: it is an instruction, not a state, and it is deleted on the next write. | Both are read once at mount. The keyboard is `j` and `k` down and up the list, `e` to hand over, `a` to assign, `/` to search and `⌘K` for the palette — all of them stand down while you are typing, so "let me take a look" does not close the conversation on the `e`. ## The model [#the-model] **`Conversation.id` *is* the contact id.** There is no separate conversation identity anywhere in this API: every `conversationID` argument takes the contact's id, and passing one where the other is asked for is correct rather than a bug to fix. That is what makes `/livechat?contact=` work at all. The inbox's own operations have no contact search — the chat list searches contacts that already have a conversation, which is exactly the set that link is not for — so another module hands a person over by id, and `CreateConversation` means "ensure a conversation exists", so an id that already has one opens that conversation rather than making a second. The contacts module builds that link directly. The other identity to know is the message's. `Message.id` is nullable on the wire and `clientId` is not, so `clientId` is the key you merge on — a fresh UUID per message, unique across every client writing to the account, because the Chatfuel dashboard merges on it too. A send mutation answers "accepted", not "delivered". The WhatsApp 24-hour window, Instagram's reply window, TikTok's ten messages per 48 hours, a template Meta paused overnight — every one of them arrives later, on the message, through `messageUpdated`. A client that reports only mutation errors therefore renders a perfectly normal-looking bubble for a message the contact will never receive. ## Configuration [#configuration] | Variable | Notes | | ---------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | | `CHATFUEL_TOKEN` | Secret. Server-side only. | | `VITE_CHATFUEL_WORKSPACE_ID` | The workspace you picked during the wizard run. | | `CHATFUEL_API_BASE` | Defaults to `https://panel.chatfuel.com`. | Every variable the app reads, and which side reads it, is on [environment variables](/docs/deploy/environments). ## Permissions [#permissions] | Object | Action | Required for | | -------- | ------ | ------------------------------------ | | `Inbox` | `View` | Reading the inbox. | | `Inbox` | `Edit` | Sending, mark-as-read and take-over. | | `People` | `View` | The contact panel beside the thread. | `People: View` is not in this module's manifest — it is the contacts permission the panel borrows, and the skill names it beside the other two. ## Limits [#limits] **Only WhatsApp's window is gated.** The composer greys 24 hours after the contact last wrote, and the template button stays lit as the way back in. Instagram's reply window and TikTok's ten-per-48-hours are deliberately *not* gated: TikTok's is a count over a period, and the count depends on history that may not be loaded. A gate that is right most of the time silently forbids messages an operator is allowed to send, so those two come back as errors on the bubble instead. **A message is a file or text, never both.** The attachment mutations take one `FileID` and no text, so a photo with a caption is two messages, each with its own `clientId`. The file goes first. **The channels take different files, and the differences do not rhyme.** The web widget and TikTok take images and nothing else; WhatsApp takes documents but no video; Instagram and Facebook take video but no documents. The module reads that off the generated enums rather than transcribing it, and refuses a file the channel cannot carry before a byte is uploaded. **Some messages carry nothing to render.** `FacebookInFileMessage` has no `fileName` field at all, a WhatsApp template on the wire has no template name, and the placeholder and unknown message types have no payload fields and no status field — the only honest rendering is a labelled chip. **A widget preview conversation is read-only.** You can read it, mark it read and open its contact card, but `conversationStart` and a text send both answer `InternalServerError`, and it is never listed by the chat list. To exercise sending, take-over and close, write to the bot from a real channel. **The list is live but positionless.** Updates arrive as add / update / remove batches with no positions, so you upsert and re-sort by last message; and the subscription's filters must match the query's exactly or you will merge events from a different result set. Thread subscriptions are per open conversation — subscribe on open, drop on close — and events during a WebSocket gap are lost, so a reconnect refetches. **Nothing here is shared with your team.** There is no canned-response type and no saved-view type anywhere in the schema. Both live in `setUserStorageItem`, scoped to the signed-in user, so two operators on the same bot do not see each other's. **One query shape is a 500 with no message.** Selecting `post { id }` on `FacebookInPostCommentMessage` in a document that also selects TikTok's `post` makes the router reject its own merged operation — conflicting scalar types under the same field name. Over HTTP that is a bare internal server error for the whole message query, and the planner's actual complaint is visible only when the same selection is sent as a subscription. | What | Number | | ------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------- | | Conversations in a list page | 50 | | Messages in a thread page | 50 | | WhatsApp templates per page | 50 | | Attribute catalog page | 100 | | Files staged in the composer at once | 10 | | Saved replies | 50, with a 60-character title and a 2,000-character body | | Saved views | 50, with a 60-character name and a 200-character query |