Java WhatsApp ChatBot Engine

A dependency for creating WhatsApp chatbots using a template-driven approach.

Templates use YAML allowing you to define conversation flows and business logic in a clean and modular way.

Features

• Template-Driven Design: Use YAML templates for conversational flows.
• Hooks for Business Logic: Attach Java classes / RESTful endpoints to process messages or actions.
• Abstracts the API for WhatsApp Cloud.
• Supports dynamic messages with placeholders.

Setup

For a quick start - Fork the repository and attempt to run the chatbot in the example folder

Developed using Java 17

1. Clone repository

git clone [email protected]:DonnC/jawce.git

2. Install all project maven dependencies

• Start by installing dependencies in the jsession folder
• Next, install jengine folder dependencies
• Finally install dependencies for the example/jchabot folder

3. Navigate to the example chatbot >example/jchatbot/src/main/resources/application.yml properties file and replace configs with your WhatsApp account configs

chatbot:
  configs:
    # ~ snippet ~
    hub-token: "your-webhook-hub-challenge-token"
    phone-number-id: "your-phone-number-id"
    access-token: "your-access-token"

4. Configure chatbot resources under the resources section

resources:
  templates: "path-to-templates-dir"
  triggers: "path-to-triggers-dir"
  watcher: "path-to-watcher-dir"

Configure the full path to where the resources are, for example.

If you clone the project in C:\\Projects folder, it will be like below

resources:
    templates: C:\\Projects\\jawce\\example\\jchatbot\\src\\main\\resources\\templates
    triggers:  C:\\Projects\\jawce\\example\\jchatbot\\src\\main\\resources\\triggers
    watcher:   C:\\Projects\\jawce\\example\\jchatbot\\src\\main\\resources\\watch

The watcher is used to listen to file changes in the watch dir which will trigger all templates to reload without restarting the service.

Engine dependency

Refer to the Example ChatBot for a quick getting started template

To include the jengine in your own project.

In your pom.xml dependencies add the following

<!-- your other dependencies -->

<dependency>
    <groupId>zw.co.dcl.jawce</groupId>
    <artifactId>jengine</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

Make sure you create a rest controller which handles 2 of the important logic

• webhook verification
• webhook payload

Documentation

Visit the official documentation for a detailed guide.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please check out the Contributing Guide for details.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.