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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/jzszdznzzl/WABotJS/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

WABotJS exposes message-action methods directly on the Message object, so you can act on any incoming message with a single method call. For more control — such as starting a conversation in a chat where no message has arrived yet — you can also reach the underlying socket directly.

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Replying to a Message

m.reply(content, options?) sends a message back to the same chat and quotes the original message, so recipients see the reply thread. It returns a Promise<Message | undefined> — the resolved value is a new Message representing the sent message, which you can then edit or react to. 
bot.onMessage(async (m) => {
  if (m.text === 'hello') {
    const sent = await m.reply({ text: 'Hello back! 👋' });
    console.log('Sent message ID:', sent?.id);
  }
});
The content parameter is baileys.AnyMessageContent — see the Content Types section below for examples.

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Sending to Any Chat

To send a message without quoting — or to initiate a message in a chat not triggered by an incoming event — use bot.sock.sendMessage(jid, content). bot.sock is the Socket instance that wraps the underlying baileys.WASocket. 
bot.onOpen(async (user) => {
  const targetJid = '12345678901234567890@lid'; // or a group JID like ...@g.us
  await bot.sock.sendMessage(targetJid, { text: 'Bot is online!' });
});
bot.sock throws if accessed before bot.login() is called. Always access it inside a callback (onOpen, onMessage, etc.) or after await bot.login() resolves.

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Reacting to a Message

m.react(emoji) sends an emoji reaction to the message. Pass the emoji as a string: 
bot.onMessage(async (m) => {
  if (m.text?.toLowerCase().includes('thanks')) {
    await m.react('❤️');
  }
});
To remove a reaction, pass an empty string: 
await m.react(''); // Removes the bot's existing reaction
react() returns Promise<Message | undefined> — the reaction protocol message.

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Editing a Message

m.edit(content, options?) edits a message that the bot itself sent. It throws an Error if m.isFromMe() is false, so it’s safe to call only on messages returned by reply() or other send operations. The classic use-case — shown in the WABotJS test suite — is to send a placeholder, compute a result, then update the message in-place: 
bot.onCommand(async (m, prefix, name, args) => {
  if (name === 'ping') {
    const start = Date.now();
    // Send a placeholder
    const res = await m.reply({ text: 'Pong!\n> ...ms' });
    const ping = Math.max(0, Date.now() - start);
    // Edit it with the real value
    if (res) {
      await res.edit({ text: `Pong!\n> ${ping}ms` });
    }
  }
});

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Deleting a Message

m.delete() revokes the message for everyone in the chat. Returns Promise<Message | undefined>. 
bot.onMessage(async (m) => {
  if (m.text === '!deleteme' && m.isFromMe()) {
    await m.delete();
  }
});

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Marking as Read

m.read() sends a read receipt for the message, moving it out of the “unread” state in the sender’s WhatsApp: 
bot.onMessage(async (m) => {
  // Acknowledge every incoming message
  await m.read();
});

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Content Types

All send and reply methods accept baileys.AnyMessageContent as the content argument. WABotJS re-exports the complete Baileys library, so you can import any Baileys type directly from wabotjs.
WABotJS re-exports the full Baileys library as a namespace. You can access Baileys types via: import { baileys } from 'wabotjs' and then reference baileys.AnyMessageContent, or import directly from baileys with import type { AnyMessageContent } from 'baileys'.
Below are the most common content shapes: 
await m.reply({ text: 'Hello, World!' });

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