What you will build
Customers stay in their Voiceflow conversation while your team replies from Chatwoot. Your service translates the platform’s conversation operations and events into the live agent handoff system.
This is a developer implementation guide, not a native connector. The API approach has been reviewed against provider documentation; a live account test is required before rollout.
Before you begin
You need a user API token, account ID, API inbox, and a test contact associated with that inbox, an HTTPS service, and access to Custom Handoff in Voiceflow. Start with the shared connection starter. Choose one test customer and one support destination.
The supplied pilot fixes one test contact and inbox. Replace this with customer lookup and persistent mapping before serving multiple customers.
Implement the connection
Prepare the support workspace
Create an API inbox and associate a test contact with it. Record the contact’s inbox source_id, contact ID, and inbox ID. The source ID identifies the contact-inbox relationship; it is not interchangeable with a user ID.
Confirm a teammate can receive and answer a manually created test conversation before adding Voiceflow.
Implement conversation creation
POST /api/v1/accounts/{account_id}/conversations with source_id, contact_id, inbox_id and status: "open". Save the returned id.
Example provider request body for POST /api/v1/accounts/ACCOUNT_ID/conversations (replace illustrative IDs):
Use the starter’s create(request, connectionId) hook. Persist the provider ID and connection ID together. Forward relevant context as an initial summary or supported private note; never inject internal metadata into customer-visible replies.
The starter includes this text-only pilot. Set CHATWOOT_URL, CHATWOOT_ACCOUNT_ID, CHATWOOT_TOKEN, CHATWOOT_INBOX_ID, CHATWOOT_CONTACT_ID, and CHATWOOT_SOURCE_ID, then run PROVIDER=chatwoot node server.mjs. Use the test contact only. Register a Chatwoot account webhook at your service’s /provider-events URL for message_created and conversation_status_changed. Set CHATWOOT_WEBHOOK_SECRET to the secret shown by Chatwoot. The pilot validates Chatwoot’s timestamp and raw-body signature, filters public outgoing replies, and maps resolved conversations to closure. Chatwoot webhook authentication.
Forward customer messages
POST /api/v1/accounts/{account_id}/conversations/{id}/messages with content, message_type: "incoming", and private: false.
Implement the starter’s message(providerConversationId, message) hook. Deduplicate the Voiceflow message id. For the first test, support text and explicitly reject unsupported files rather than acknowledging and dropping them.
Receive human replies
Subscribe to message and conversation-status events. Relay only outgoing human messages where private is false; exclude incoming messages and activity entries. Map resolved conversations to conversation.ended.
The supplied /provider-events receiver handles this for the pilot. In another implementation, after provider authentication succeeds, look up the mapped connection ID and send a normalized message.received event to the starter’s authenticated /events route. Include a stable provider event ID, timestamp and human display name. Do not manufacture an agent.joined event merely because a conversation was created.
Implement closure
POST /api/v1/accounts/{account_id}/conversations/{id}/toggle_status with status: "resolved".
Implement the end(providerConversationId) hook. Deliver conversation.ended for provider-initiated closure. Make both paths idempotent so a reflected closure cannot trigger an endless loop.
Connect and test in Voiceflow
Configure your service in Settings → Integrations → Custom Handoff, then follow Set up live agent handoff. Set Queue ID only when your service has a documented mapping. Publish to a test environment and use the actual customer channel.
Verify a complete handoff
Run this acceptance sequence with a teammate in Chatwoot:
- Escalate and confirm exactly one conversation appears in the intended inbox.
- Check the customer identity and escalation context.
- Send “customer test 1” from Voiceflow and “human test 1” from the support inbox. Both must arrive once.
- Add a private note; it must not reach the customer.
- Replay the same customer-message ID and provider event ID; neither should duplicate a message.
- Close from the support inbox and verify the configured return-to-AI path.
- Repeat with invalid credentials and an unavailable provider; verify the fallback.
If messages disappear, inspect the provider delivery log, the ID mapping and Voiceflow callback response in that order. A successful create call alone does not establish that the connection works.
Reference and next steps
Provider setup/API documentation · Provider messages/events documentation
Connection API · Event contract · Troubleshooting
Before production, replace in-memory state with durable storage, implement the provider’s retry/refresh rules, and test attachment and routing support only if your deployment needs them.