Set up your Node.js Project
Learn the basics for setting up the WhatsApp Business Platform SDK for your Node.js project and important details about the SDK.
Start a new project
If you new to using the WhatsApp Business Platform Node.js SDK, first follow the provided quickstart for steps to send your first message and perform basic project setup and configuration.
Installation
You can quickly install the WhatsApp Business Platform Node.js SDK as follows:
npm install whatsapp
This SDK is for server-side with Node.js only. It does not support web browser or frontend applications.
Development
The SDK assumes you are in development mode by default. The logger can be enabled globally in the WhatsApp Business Platform Node.js SDK by setting a DEBUG ( or process.env.DEBUG) environmental variable to true.
Enabling the logger can log user information, secrets, and other secure information.
Production
A production system (where NODE_ENV=production), does not read from a .env file. This is to protect the security posture of having tokens being stored in accessible a file system. The environmental variables need to exist to the application before the WhatsApp class is instantiated.
TypeScript support
The WhatsApp Business Platform Node.js SDK supports TypeScript with TypeScript declaration files for WhatsApp Business Platform APIs. These files help you type-check usage of the WhatsApp Business Platform Node.js SDK in your code, along with hints and code completion in TypeScript compatible IDEs.